


tell me to run

by bitchbutter



Series: rivers always reach the sea [2]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Blow Jobs, Episode II: Revenge of the Yearn, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Angst with a happy ending, Post-War / Pre-Home, Too Upset To Fuck v. Too Upset Not To Fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 09:20:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30103746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitchbutter/pseuds/bitchbutter
Summary: The end of the war could be the end of a lot of things.If Joe could let it be.
Relationships: Joseph Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster
Series: rivers always reach the sea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214264
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	tell me to run

**Author's Note:**

> greetings babes~ 
> 
> thank you so much for the lovely responses to the first installment of this series! It certainly made the endless editing/re-write process for this one go that much quicker <3 I hope that this one is able to inspire those same feelings, I certainly had an amazing journey writing it.
> 
> it should be noted that I am not a naval engineer and/or ship captain, so the timetable for the crossing is all based on what i've been able to gather from separate documents and (to be fair) these are all subjective. 
> 
> helpful listening that served to inspire me are: _It's Late_ by Queen, and _ivy_ and _hoax_ by Taylor Swift.

There was no reason to be nervous.

No reason to be nervous. 

Ain’t no bombs, or planes, and though the England air outside the hotel window is cold it’s nowhere near as cold as Bastogne had been just about a year ago. The soft sounds emanating from the bathroom were just Web splashing about in the tub, not some unknown sniper waiting for him to feel safe to strike. 

There was no reason to be nervous. But fuck, he _was_ nervous. 

_Fucking pathetic_ , Joe thought to himself, stubbing out his cigarette and proceeding to drum his fingers on the surface of the windowsill where his forgotten glass of whiskey sat. Outside the sky had long past sunken into a velvety darkness only possible in the city during winter, and below, on the street, lamps were still lit in the windows where families were preparing to celebrate their first holiday season totally free from war. There was no wind, and the chill remained exactly where it should be: outside, away from Joe. 

He allowed himself a few moments to well and truly miss his family, his mother and his sisters.

 _Next year_ , he reasoned. Next year will come faster than anything, even if this night is a goddamn eternity. 

As if on cue, he heard a splash and the sound of the plug on the tub being pulled, water rushing down the pipes as Web ended his bath.

Joe pulled in another deep breath, running a hand through his freshly washed hair. _Ok, here we go_ , he thought, _here we go. Real deal._

Why was he fucking nervous? What was he afraid of, that Web was going to change his mind? Realize that yeah, even though they’ve been fucking around for the last year and a half tonight is the last straw? He’s being an idiot.

And anyway, they had decided. Almost the moment (or embarrassingly close to it) they had both been successfully discharged they had agreed to do this, and now they were. Two civilians in a hotel room for one night. To let themselves do it at least once before -

 _Turn the dial on that train of thought, Liebgott,_ Joe thought. 

He blew gently between his fingers to cool them, shaking them out and resolutely not looking at the bed, before giving in and casting a glance over to it. Certainly the finest bed he’d seen in close to three years, with its crisp, clean white sheets and the plush golden hued coverlet, which was rumpled from he and Web throwing themselves onto it to gleefully neck for what felt like hours before Web separated from him to bathe. Just looking at it remembering the softness beneath him and the solidness of Web beside him, then over him, then under him, and all around him, was making him feel dizzy and -

Groaning, Joe shook his head. He was fucking gone for this, he already knew. 

And again, that’s fucking pathetic. 

Not like he’s never done this before. Just maybe not like _this_ before.

With a soft click the bathroom door opened, and a slight puff of steam heralded Web’s return to the bedroom, towel wrapped securely around his hips to display his dark chest and rosy skin. He smiled upon seeing Joe sat in the chair by the window, and ran one hand through his damp hair as he approached with slow, satisfied steps.

“Better?” Joe questioned, following the path of the precious few drops of water still clinging to Web’s torso rolling down towards his hips. 

“Drastically better,” Web practically moaned, picking up his own glass of whiskey from its spot next to Joe’s and taking the tiniest of sips. “You should have come.”

Joe shook his head, snickering. “You gotta get your eyes checked if you think we were both going to fit in that thing, Webster.”

“I’m just saying,” Web said, replacing his glass and leaning against the sill and towards Joe. “Might have been nice.”

Humming, Joe tilted his face up towards the other, dark eyes lowering in to lock against Web’s own. “What?” he teased softly. “This room ain’t nice enough for you?”

A hand was all of a sudden caressing the skin just under his jaw, palm warming up against the scar on his neck, as Web’s mouth brushed against his own. “It’s great,” Web murmured, pressing a kiss as pure as the goddamn driven snow against the corner of Joe’s lips. “You’re great.”

This is at least where they’re fucking _dynamite_ , where Joe knows exactly where to go, with his mouth and Web’s mouth pressed up tight against each other and yet still soft and warm as anything. Web makes a small, almost unconscious, sound as Joe’s hand winds itself into his hair and combs through it, nails scratching at his scalp, and Joe takes that as permission to lick his way into his lover's mouth. The hand against Joe’s neck tightens minutely at the play of their tongues against one another, and in response he gives a not _not_ gentle pull to Web’s hair. 

_Fucking dynamite,_ he thinks smugly as Web moans against his mouth and his body sags a little further down into Joe’s space. 

Web pulls their mouths apart, even against the dissatisfied whine Joe makes and then cringes at. “You don’t want me to sit in your lap,” he rasps, shaking his head, looking down to where he’s braced against the chair, only inches away from falling directly into the other man. “I’m too heavy.”

“Bullshit,” Joe rolls his eyes in frustration, attempting to pull Web’s lips back to his own, but only succeeding in making contact with the other man’s cheek, which he proceeds to kiss sloppily. “Come here, doll.” 

Allowing their lips to meet once more in a smacking kiss, Web straightens with a coy turn to his mouth that only spells trouble for Joe. He takes the few short steps over to the bed, and it’s enough of a journey for Joe to see that the towel around Web’s hips is a little looser than it was, that it could fall apart at the tiniest motion now if he could only fucking _move_.

Seating himself at the foot of the bed, Web’s gaze on him could be considered fond, but he knows the different depths of Web’s eyes now, the way his mouth will turn like a sundial and might look one thing but be another. And this is not a fond look: it’s a hungry look.

“Will you sit with me?” he asks, and his voice is wanting but gentle. 

Joe would be a fucking fool to deny him.

So he stands, and is all at once conscious of the fact that Web is wearing nothing but a towel but Joe still has his undershirt as well as his trousers on. And it feels like one of the boldest things he’s ever done to hold Web’s gaze as he undresses, though his movements hold no pretense. But he’s got the sense to realize that although, yeah, they’ve seen a lot of each other, it’s never been _all_ let alone all at once. 

He sees more than hears the hitch in Web’s breath as he pulls his belt before pushing his slacks down around his ankles, stepping out of them in the same motion that brings his arms up to pull his undershirt off. If the other man’s skin was rosy before Joe knows he’s blushing now as Joe’s hands move to his shorts, thumbs sliding beneath the band and not pausing to feel self-conscious before swiftly pulling them down to join his other discarded clothes.

Eyes widening the slightest bit at the sight, Web’s mouth also twitches into the shadow of a smile, as if to say _ah, now there’s a part I know_ , before his eyes move back up Joe’s torso, drinking him in. The shadow of a smile becomes a true smile as his gaze lingers on the angles of Joe’s body, still just on the cusp of too thin, and it’s all he can do not to flush in response to the brazen appraisal he’s receiving at the hands of Web, of fucking _Web_ who he’s know for how long now? Two years? Eternity?

Web’s hand raises, palm opened and cautious as though approaching some forbidden relic, and he trails the back of his knuckles all the way from Joe’s navel to his clavicle. He’s expecting the touch to turn dirty at any moment, but instead Web flattens his palm at the crux of Joe’s chest and simply lets it rest there; wide, moving with the beat of his heart, the soft inhale and exhale of his being.

And if anything, Web’s smile just gets bigger.

If he keeps that up there’s no goddamn way Joe will ever be able to leave this room tomorrow.

So he gathers Web’s hand up with his own, bringing it to his lips to brush a series of light, dry kisses across his knuckles. Chuckling at the feeling, Web uses Joe’s grip against him, gently urging the other man in with a pull of his hand.

They move in sync, but this time their coordination has no purely illicit goal; Joe crawls onto the bed as Web pushes himself back, the both of them turning into the others grasp as they lay side by side, faces scant inches apart. Once they’re both settled it’s only then that Joe brings his eyes back down to the towel just barely wrapped around Web, his bare knee splitting the enclosure. Blinking in momentary bewilderment at the direction of Joe’s gaze, Web quickly discerns the new separation between them.

Web reaches one hand up to where Joe’s own hand had rested against his bicep, moving it down his elbow, and farther to graze his hip, then stopping it against the fabric of the towel. Joe swallows, another flare of that nauseating nervous feeling bubbling up in his stomach, before he meets Web’s clear-eyed gaze and sees nothing but -

Without any further hesitation, Joe slips his fingers beneath the fabric, sweeping it up and away from Web’s body to bare him. 

_Now there’s a part I know_ , he thinks, but the joke is half-hearted against the sight of Web’s nakedness in its entirety. It was one thing to feel the solidness of another against you in the dark, to sense the beat of his pulse beside you, guess that the skin of his thighs might be the same color as the flesh on the inside of his arms. It’s another to see it. 

He’s fucking gone. Gone somewhere in the space between them, hiding, using their chests as protection against the war of the world outside that isn’t even a war at all anymore to anyone but men like him.

Their eyes meet again, and a strange knowingness passes through them at once. Web moves in to close the space between them, arms moving up and around Joe’s shoulders to press their chests together as Joe’s hand grabs under Web’s thigh, pulling it up to slot his knee softly between the other man’s legs, his other leg tangling up beneath them. The kiss they meet in is chaste, according to their standards, and after a moment Joe is content to simply relax his head back against Web’s arm pillowed beneath him, allowing their bodies to breathe against each other, to rest. 

He feels Web’s fingers moving through his hair, and sighs contentedly against the feeling. In return, his own fingers massage the meat of Web’s thigh, at once soothing and titillating. 

This time he nearly feels Web’s smile, their faces are so close. 

Joe swallows. “Can I ask you something?” he questions, keeping his voice as soft as can be to preserve the near intangibly tender territory they’ve just breached.

Raising his eyebrows, Web’s smile becomes teasing. “I want to say yes,” he says, rubbing his thumb just behind Joe’s ear. “But usually when you _ask_ if you can ask me something it’s not something I want to be asked.”

Joe arches his neck slightly into the touch, drawing in a deep breath to remember the point of his questioning. “Have you ever?” he asked, before reproaching himself at the puzzled furrow of Web’s brow. “Been with a guy, I mean.”

Web pulls the corner of his lip in between his teeth before giving his head a shake. “No,” he answers, a blush forming again over his cheekbones. “Have you?”

Joe shakes his head. “No.”

“Are you nervous?” Web asked, nothing accusing infecting his voice.

“No,” Joe lied. He pulled Web’s thigh up from it’s place at his hip just the slightest bit more, pressing himself in tighter as though to hammer home the reality of the other man’s body. Web’s breath caught a bit at the movement, his hips moving against Joe’s involuntarily, both of them pausing to relish and hiss at the contact. It’s not until he looks back to Web’s face, where his bottom lip is back between his teeth that he thinks to ask: “Are you nervous?” 

It comes out a little harder than he intended it to, and he rubs the underside of Web’s thigh to soften it. 

He almost starts a bit when Web doesn’t immediately deny. “I’m not nervous…” he trails, looking from Joe’s left eye, to Joe’s right eye, to somewhere in the vicinity of his neck. “I’m…I...”

And if Web is at a loss for words then Joe might actually have a cause for concern. Quickly he’s pressing a reassuring kiss against Web’s lips, then another to his cheek. When he pauses Web moves against him languidly, and the soft press of his soft cock against Web’s has him tempted to sweep back in and further ravish Web’s mouth, but he rights himself. “Are you sure? You still want to?” he rasps.

Web swallows heavily, spots of red growing even redder against the pale skin of his cheeks as he nods. “I’m sure,” he answers steadily, kissing Joe shortly. “Are you su-”

“Oh, God,” Joe cuts him off in exasperation, hauling the other man back against him to soundly kiss him and pick up where he left off. 

But even as their kiss flames up fast, wet and fierce, they move against each other with slow, teasing rolls at first. Joe groans into Web’s mouth as his cock begins to fill, growing more and more sensitive with every press against Web’s own stiffening cock. His hand digs deeper into Web’s thigh at the feeling of fingers tightening in his hair, and he’s using his grip to angle himself up and over the other man before he totally knows what he’s doing. 

He looks down at Web’s kiss-stained lips with a singular satisfaction that has Web smiling coyly back up at him as he runs a hand down Joe’s back to land a delicious _‘smack’_ against his ass. 

“If you’re going to keep looking,” Web whispered hoarsely against Joe’s hissing exclaim. “Then I’m going to start charging you by the minute.”

Joe can’t even retort, as the hand that had slapped him is now massaging the abused flesh, and the sensation has him surging forward to kiss against Web’s neck, his hips angling down to nudge up under Web’s cock. Groaning, the other man arches his neck to allow Joe’s mouth more room to move, to kiss, to nip a stinging bite just to the side of his neck and suck on it. He feels Web’s legs moving up to cradle against his hips, the soft flesh there gently spurring him on to move just that much faster, building the friction between them to a simmering and increasingly desperate rock. 

Laving his tongue across the bite mark that was already sinking into a deep red against the creaminess of Web’s skin, Joe smoothed his hand up the ridges and peaks of Web’s chest to place his hand flat against the mark, thumb poking up under the other man’s jaw. Their breath ghosts in hot bursts against each other's faces as they rolled their hips against each other, Web’s lips trembling into an aroused gape as Joe bit at his own lip against his own soft moans. 

This is what it’s going to look like, Web under him just like this- 

At a particularly forceful thrust of Joe’s hips, Web’s hazy eyes snap shut and he moans out a long sound that sends Joe up and gasping for more breath somewhere in the air above them. He should feel grounded, anchored with Web’s hands on him, but instead he feels like he’s plummeting through some hot darkness towards a destination he can’t find on a sand table. 

Maybe he’s lucky and it’s just the whiskey, but for some reason Joe thinks his luck is running out. 

Web seems to sense that Joe isn’t altogether with him, as he leans up, urging Joe back and onto his knees, placing a series of wet kisses against his neck. And where his hand might have been soft, reverent, Web’s mouth isn’t as he proceeds to lick impatient stripes down Joe’s chest to let his tongue play with the other man’s nipples. 

And that is _not_ something he’s had before. 

In very quick succession Joe oscillates between surprise, delight, embarrassment, and pure unadulterated pleasure. He can only cap off this hurricane of emotion by huffing out a startled laugh, before he feels the edge of Web’s teeth teasing over the edge of his nipple. 

“Oh, what -” he chokes out, as Web plants a messy kiss to his pec and tilts his face up towards Joe momentarily before turning to suck insistently at the other nipple. “What the fuck, Web- what the _fuck_ -”

He gasps at the almost harsh suction of the other man’s mouth, and his hands squeeze at Web’s shoulders bruisingly before they move into the other man’s hair and simply let his fingers comb through and grasp intermittently at the dark strands. Web relinquishes his attention with no warning, clear-eyed gaze locking onto Joe’s for some sort of approval, of confirmation that, yes, that was alright.

Licking at his lips, Joe cups Web’s face and quickly sears a kiss onto his reddened lips, before running his mouth up to Web’s forehead and kissing its heated surface. “Web…”

He feels the other man’s arms winding across his back, his legs still pressed tight on either side of Joe’s body. “Liebling…” he hears, feeling the whisper against his neck, and all at once he and Web are crushed up against each other again; Joe’s arms anchoring Web’s head against his chest and Web’s arms tightening up around him.

Fuck, here they are with an entire soft bed to fuck on and all they can manage to do is hold each other. 

_Turn it around_ , he thinks to himself, _turn this around._

So he pulls Web’s face up from his chest, thumb rubbing roughly at that plump lower lip, before sweeping down to kiss him quickly and deeply again. “How do you want it?” he asks, voice hoarse, hips moving up against Web’s again, even if the angle is a bit shit to get any friction.

That seems to be enough for the other man, who shudders in a fast breath, eyes fluttering, before lowering himself back down to the mattress. “Any way,” he admits, running his hands through Joe’s hair. “Just kiss me first?”

It’s said softly, earnestly, and he detects a tremble to Web’s voice. And he wants to stop and just fucking hold him again, run his hands over every rise and fall of his body, but the night is black outside and in the morning this will all be over and done with and he needs to make it count -

He kisses Web harshly, smoothing his hands over the other man’s nipples to momentarily squeeze at them in a facsimile of the sensation Web had given him, Joe eases himself up to smile leeringly down at his gasping lover. “Then spread your legs for me, dollface.”

Web’s shiver radiates between them as his legs move almost instantaneously to widen themselves, feet planted flat against the bed, and Joe moves away briefly to retrieve the little tub of Vaseline he’d placed on the bedside table as Web bathed. At the movement he sees Web’s throat bob with a thick swallow, and the twinge of nervousness he spots in the other man’s eyes as he removes the cap and dips his fingers in makes his own anxiety flare up incrementally. 

“Hey,” he whispers, lowering himself back into Web’s space to nudge their noses together in a gentle nuzzle. “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” Web breathed. “Yes, yes, _yes_.”

His voice shoots higher as Joe’s hand, now pleasantly slick, finally finds its way around his cock, stroking along the length of his shaft before trailing up to twirl around the head. Web’s leg shoots from where it had been steadfastly planted against the bed to wrap around Joe’s hip. “Joe…” he groaned, fingers tightening and pulling in Joe’s hair, earning another bite that lands against Web’s neck with a small exclamation.

After another few minutes of slick, slow strokes, Web is putty in his hands. Watching his head roll against their mussed sheets in restless pleasure is making Joe’s own cock throb, and he settles for continuing to thrust shallowly against Web’s abs as he seamlessly moves his hand from Web’s cock, to ghost lightly over his balls, to press gently but insistently against his hole. 

Web only stiffens minutely, his eyes still wider than normal but filled with trust as Joe continues to simply press against the dry tightness of his hole. Thinking better of it, he reaches to dip his fingers back into the Vaseline beside Web’s hip, ignoring the subtle tremor he sees, before returning them to now push a little harder against the furl, his other hand moving to brace itself against the spread of the other man’s thigh. 

And he pressed, and pressed a little harder, and a little harder, until he breached Web with just the tip of his finger. 

They gasp in unison, Joe nearly pulling his hand back at the powerful clench of Web’s body, but instead pressing forward steadily as beneath him Web clasped and kneaded at his shoulders. Hissing, he moved back slightly to watch as his finger slowly but surely disappeared into his lover, feeling an embarrassing flush spread all down his neck and onto his collarbone at the sight. 

“Fuck…” he whispered to himself, moving his finger gently back towards himself before inching it forward again. “You ever done this to yourself before?” he asked, glancing back towards Web’s face, his open mouth and his eyes shut tight.

Nodding rapidly, Web’s eyes blinked themselves open to look hazily back at Joe. “Once I did. Long time ago.”

Joe likes the sound of that, likes the picture in his head of Web writhing all around his posh Harvard bed yearning for something, someone, to come and give it to him like his fingers can’t. He can draw that up in his memory when they say goodbye -

He shakes his head, pitching forward again to take Web’s mouth with his own. Sweeping his tongue against Web’s he teases the rim of the other man’s hole with his pointer finger, pressing gently and nearly slipping in as Web rocks down into the feeling.

“You like it?” he questions, eyes boring down into his lover’s.

Biting at his lower lip as he again fucks himself down on Joe’s hand, Web shudders. “I like it,” he rasps, tipping his head back as Joe’s finger drags against his rim once more. “You can add another one.”

Joe nods, leaning in to kiss the long line of Web’s neck as he lets another finger join in the soft fucking his hand is slowly but surely giving the other man. He can feel the vibration of Web’s moan echo up through the skin of his throat, and rubs his throbbing cock more insistently against the skin of Web’s stomach. 

On a whim, he pushes a little faster back into Web’s hole, moving his fingers that much deeper, and relishes the choked whimper Web exhales as he spreads his fingers just the slightest bit as he drags them back out.

“Oh _God_ ,” Web moans at the feeling, one hand clenching in the bedding beside his face and the other digging into Joe’s shoulder. “Oh God, Joe, _Joe_ -”

“Yeah,” Joe chuckles, biting back a groan of his own at the way Web tightened and released around him, keeping his hand as steady as he could. “You do like that, huh?”

“Yes,” Web sighed, lips turning up in bliss.

“Tell me you like it, Web, tell me how much you like it,” Joe nearly growled against his lover’s ear.

Shivering, Web quickly turned his head to let his wet mouth speak right against Joe’s face. “Fuck, I like it -” he choked out as the fingers inside him widened just that much more. “Like it just like that, just like that, Lieb. Don’t stop, don’t stop, please, don’t -”

“Not going to stop,” Joe shook his head, kissing the other man’s sweaty temple. “Never, never…”

For a moment he thinks that the sudden choked _‘oh!’_ that flies from Web’s mouth, and the ensuing spasm of his body, is in response to his words and he immediately wishes he could retract them. But the hugeness of Web’s blue eyes is not focused on him, in fact they aren’t focused on anything, he’s gone nearly cross-eyed. 

“What?” Joe questions, heart rate picking up as Web’s mouth simply trembles in response. When he receives no response he moves to begin pulling his fingers back, and the hand that had been slowly bruising Joe’s shoulder shoots down to lock his wrist up, keeping his fingers firmly in place.

Web’s eyes darted from Joe’s hand, to Joe’s face, then back to his hand as he tentatively moved back against the force inside him. Almost immediately he tossed his head back again, a drawn-out moan rolling from his mouth uninhibitedly. 

And Joe does feel it this time, against the tips of his fingers as Web continues to ride his hand. Whatever the fuck he’s touching is driving Web up the goddamn wall, across the ceiling, and back again. 

With the new confidence this little place inside the other man gives him, Joe begins moving his hand in earnest, roughly dragging across that spot and out again faster.

The hand that had clenched around Joe’s wrist made an aborted motion up towards Web’s mouth, but halts in midair and simply flutters between them, fingers opening and closing in a bizarre claw as a positively filthy stream of _‘ah-ah-ah’_ punched the air between them. Joe considered momentarily covering Web’s fucking mouth because they’re just asking for someone to come and complain about the noise. But the sweat building up in combination with the precum leaking all over the man beneath him is creating a slick little channel through which he continued to thrust his purpling cock, so he decided _fuck that._

Finally decided on its route, Web’s hand once again combed its way desperately through Joe’s hair (God, he shuddered to think what it looked like right now, Web’s looked utterly ridiculous) before fisting the back and yanking him down for a kiss. 

“What are you doing?” Web breathed against him, body shivering up into sensation again. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, I don’t fucking know,” Joe replied, nipping again at Web’s bottom lip and smiling at the ensuing yelp. “But I could do it all fucking night.”

Web’s hips keep moving against his hand, keeping perfect time, as he bites at his own lips and moans deep in his throat again. He looks like every fantasy Joe has denied himself for the past three years, for the past lifetime; pink lips, wet blue eyes, the smooth plane of his chest and the harsh jut of his dribbling cock. 

This is a dream, he’s a dream -

He’s pulling his fingers from the other man’s body suddenly, soothing Web’s small grunt with a kiss, and sending his fingers back into the Vaseline. Web watches Joe’s hand move to slick up his cock, and that same trepidation is back creasing the line of his brow and sharpening the turn of his mouth. He smooths his hands along his lover’s ample thighs, hitching one higher up from its place at his hip and spreading the other to plant wide to the bed.

He doesn’t know if this is right, he doesn’t know where jokes end and reality begins, he’s heard every dirty story twice but he still isn’t sure and damn it he wants this to be good, to be perfect -

Fighting not to curse himself for treating this like some special, immeasurable thing, Joe placed one arm beside Web’s face on the bed, the other between his legs to steady his cock. Web looks at him with wide eyes, every bit the 23 year old Joe occasionally forgets he is, and he can’t help but kiss him again, soft and slow.

“Ok?” Joe murmured, feeling the other man’s lips under his own as he spoke.

Web nodded, swallowing. 

He kissed Web’s forehead once more before angling himself up slightly, looking down to where the head of his cock was poised to enter the other man’s slightly reddened hole with just the smallest movement of his hips. Taking in a deep breath that he hopes Web can’t hear, he breathed out as slow as he could as he brought his cock forward to nudge up against the -

A sharp heave from below immediately halts him.

Both of Web’s hands cover his face, pushed up tight to his skin to hide his expression, but the steady tremble of his shoulders tells Joe this isn’t just overwhelmed excitement.

He’s frozen for a moment, limbs locked up. “Hey,” Joe begins, calming the tremor in his own voice as he places one hand in Web’s hair. “Web? What’s going on?”

Web shakes his head, his fingers splitting slightly to reveal a glimpse of his eyes closed up tight and brow furrowed, and fuck, if he’s crying that’s it, that will be it -

“Talk to me, buddy, what’s going on?” he questioned again, petting his hand through the other man’s wild nest of hair in what he hoped was a soothing way. 

Finally Web’s face was revealed, hands lowering down to the bed in half-clenched fists, and thank fuck he isn’t crying but his eyes remain firmly shut, even as his mouth wobbles open.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized weakly. 

“No, no,” Joe shook his head, giving in to the urge to lean in and kiss Web’s forehead again, trailing over his cheeks, pecking the lids of his eyes. “Don’t be sorry, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

Web’s chest is moving rapidly, breathing labored as his mouth twists in discomfort. “I don’t...” he begins, rubbing a hand over his eyes before covering his mouth again. His eyes finally open, and there’s fear pulsing through their clear, blue depths.

“I can't,” he whispered.

Joe’s immediate reaction is that he was supposed to use three fingers instead of just two, but the hard red blush spreading across Web’s face is proof enough that his meaning is less physical than their current positions would have him believe. He is a little surprised, and it must show on his face because Web’s own reddened face crumples up in embarrassed misery, and his eyes shut again.

“I’m sorry, Joe, I’m so sorry,” he chokes. “I thought- I didn’t mean -”

And that has Joe moving up and off him, angling himself onto his side next to the other man and gathering him into a tight embrace. “No, hey, none of that,” he shushed, pecking a tiny kiss onto Web’s heated temple. 

“I’m sorry, I’m ruining everything,” Web’s voice floundered, one hand coming up to partially cover his reddening face. “I ruin everything.”

“You’re not ruining anything, Web, come on, look at me,” Joe protested, taking the hand the other man had brought to his face in his own. “I’m not mad, I promise, I’m not. I don’t want to make you do something -”

“No, no,” the other man cut in quickly, blue eyes opening back up in cautious determination. “I want to, I do, it’s not anything like that -”

“If you’re not ready then you’re not ready, Web,” Joe shook his head. “You’re not ruining anything.”

“Are you angry?” Web asked, eyes dancing frantically over Joe’s face as his hand softly cupped his jaw. 

Turning his head to press a kiss that’s more breath than mouth to the other man’s palm, Joe made a soft noise in the back of his throat. “I’m not angry. Do I look angry?”

Sniffing in a fraction of embarrassment and fondness, Web managed a tiny smile. “You look perfect.”

As fast as anything they’re back where they started, Joe pulling Web into him to press their bodies together fully, nuzzling his face into the other man’s neck. Web’s breath is still a little wobbly, and Joe finds his body moving to accompany the other’s in a slow tremble against the embrace of their skin. “It’s alright,” he breathed into the pale skin of Web’s neck, relishing in the shiver his breath caused. “It’s alright.”

“You’re not going to laugh about this are you?” Web asked softly, voice so brittle that it practically cracked along the edges of his syllables. “When you’re back in California and you find that girl you always talked about you’re not going to laugh about that stupid guy you sort-of liked for a few years in the war, are you?”

He feels ill. 

Ill at the thought that this is not supposed to be difficult, he shouldn’t have felt the need to save their first time until they could do it right, and he shouldn’t have felt fucking scared to do it. He fucked himself and he didn’t even know it. He was too good. 

That’s the kind of person Web thinks he is.

Joe might be any number of things, he’s not ashamed of it, but he’s not mean for sport. He’d never be deliberately cruel the way the other guys think he is.

He doesn’t know where he’s fucking been. Doesn’t even know where the guy that first pressed his mouth to Web’s face went until they surged out of the Austrian lake together. 

_It’s not right_ , he thinks. Web thinks he’s holding a different man right now. 

“I would never, _ever_ do that to you,” he rasped, pulling Web’s face from it’s safe enclosure between Joe’s neck and the bed, taking in the sight of his reddened cheeks and electric blue eyes. Looks like a goddamn watercolor. “Do you understand me?” he asks, seizing the hairs at the back of Web’s skull gently but intentionally. “I wouldn’t laugh at you, you aren’t a fucking joke to me. _Don’t start_ ,” he heads off as Web’s mouth quirks critically. “Just because sometimes you talk like a horse kicked you in your goddamn head doesn’t mean I take anything between us for granted, alright?”

Web smiled half-heartedly, eyes remaining locked onto Joe’s and yet far away, melancholy dusting the turn of his mouth. “I worry sometimes,” he admitted quietly, throat bobbing as he swallowed against his words. “Laying in that hospital for months, when I was _sick_ ,” he says pointedly, seeming at war with whether to once again try and justify his extended vacation away from Easy or to lower his eyes and feign shame to appease Joe. “There was a time I really did think it was all in my head. Us, I mean. Like I imagined it all.”

Joe frowned. “Really?”

Nodding tightly, Web’s eyes flicked down to linger over the sight of their skin pressed together. “When I got to Haguenau...I sort of believed I did until that morning.”

It’s not too foreign a concept to Joe. His time in the Bois Jacques was dedicated to a lot of things, and crying into his pillow because Web wasn’t there was not exactly one of them. The little moments where he allowed his mind to linger on memories of how it felt to really be kissed, the strength of Web’s arms around him, the heat that oozed out of every pore on the other man’s face when he took Joe in his mouth came few and far between. And every time they reappeared in his head there was a different shade of feeling wrapped over the moment, starting at wanting, and moving hard and fast into resentment.

Maybe he never cried into his pillow, but he’s not made of fucking stone. 

By the time Web was trying to waltz back into his life in Haguenau like Joe was still the person he was when they separated in Holland any warm memory he had retained had been rendered cold. 

Until.

Until the morning after the Patrol That Never Was, waking up together in the bunk that was Web’s, and then Joe’s, and then theirs. He had passed out early, taking their directive to get a good night's sleep to heart, and hadn’t even felt Web crawl up to lie top and tail beside him. He had awoken just as the early morning light was beginning to permeate the darkness with a blue glow, surrounded by the restful breathing of the men around him.

Web had been using his pack as a prop behind his head, one arm thrown up to curl around an errant strap and the other spread over his open notebook on his chest. His mouth, as fucking always, had been open, and Joe spent what was likely an obscene amount of time just looking at the fullness of Web’s lips. It had been a long, long time since he’d seen lips look that good. Not chapped, not cut, not pale with the cold, but round, soft, and looking so, so warm.

He had leaned up, eyes catching onto the open notebook, and in the scant light of the room could make out his own name nestled between Web’s fingers. One strand of hair curled limply over the other man’s brow, and Joe had reached impulsively to brush it away, and Web had awoken with a sigh as deep and sweet as a drink of water on a hot day. Web hadn’t even had the decency to look surprised at Joe, simply blinking blearily at him with a look as close to relief as a man still half asleep could manage. 

Joe hadn’t kissed him then. But he’d wanted to.

The memory makes him warm, and from the way Web draws his bottom lip into his mouth it’s making him warm, too. 

“I didn’t know that,” Joe says simply.

“I’m afraid of feeling that way again,” Web admits in a hushed whisper, eyes tracing across Joe’s face leaving a feeling of slow warmth blooming over his cheeks. “I want to remember you exactly as you are, right here, just as you are,” he continues, hand petting Joe’s mussed hair back from his face. “Because I think this is real. I hope it is, anyway.”

Joe swallows a sizable lump in his throat, effectively laying down his rifle against the onslaught of emotion he’s been trying to beat back since he and Web stepped on the train together. He admits with no small degree of hot embarrassment that he likes Web; likes him enough that he seeks his eyes out in a crowd, enough that in the morning before he rises he thinks about Web. And it would be one thing if these musings were precisely sexual, and they certainly made up the brunt of his daydreams in the past, but it’s not that simple anymore. He lays in bed and thinks about Web’s smile, how it makes him feel like he’s falling, he thinks about conversations they’ve had in the back of trucks, about a story Web told him from when he was 13. 

He really, really, really wants this feeling to go away.

He doesn’t want to like Web as much as he apparently does. 

“Web,” he sighs between them, his hand pressing that much harder into the warmth of Web’s neck. “I like you.”

There’s not even any hesitation when Web opens his mouth again. “I like you, Joe,” he murmurs, and Joe can feel his fingers still moving though his hair, gently stroking.

 _How can we endure it?_ he thinks in a facsimile of Web’s own voice and has to duck his head to hide a despairing smile, which Web accepts the press of against his own mouth with a tiny noise of pleasure. Joe tucked his face into Web’s neck, inhaling the trace scent of sweat, of the fancy hotel soap, and relished in the feeling of being held, forcing his mind to imprint the feeling into his skin and capture the warmth of the man beside him to conjure up when Web was nothing but a memory he returned to in the dark. 

He never knew this was in him. Never would have imagined he could be so satisfied by nothing but the feeling of Web beside him.

* * *

It’s still dark when he cracks his eyes open the next morning, which is good because Joe’s usual few moments of weightless unconsciousness are almost immediately swamped by the unyielding knowledge that they had a boat to catch that morning. A boat to catch, guys to meet, futures to get on with away from this room with its warm bed and it’s locked doors.

He feels Web pressed up behind him, legs nudged up into Joe’s own in sleep, one arm curled around him so his hand could rest against Joe’s chest. Web doesn’t like it when he can feel Joe breathing on him, but Joe doesn’t mind it; he almost revels in the light puffs of air against the scarred skin of his neck, appreciates these tokens of life that sometimes come his way. Likes it so much that he forces himself to remain as still as he can, even as his muscles ache to stretch and adjust to wakefulness, so as not to disturb Web’s hold on him.

Joe doesn’t remember falling asleep. In fact, he remembers trying hard _not_ to fall asleep, and feels somewhat cheated by his body's apparent betrayal. He tries in vain to think of the last thing he said, of what they were even talking about when he drifted off, if Web had kissed his cheek and asked him not to fall asleep, but he can’t recall any of it. Just warmth.

He sighs as deeply as he can manage, and lets his hand gently caress the back of Web’s where it rests against his chest. 

That’s it, then. 

A wave of bitterness washes over him, abrupt as anything. How much of himself has he given? How much has he sacrificed? What the fuck has he done to himself and what the fuck has he done to others? 

Can’t he have this? Can’t he have this _one_ thing? What more does he have to do? How many fucking battles, how many injuries, how many nights spent shoved into a foxhole in a freezing forest with bombs raining down on him, how many injustices does he have to see to earn this one thing?

He just wants this. Just this, here, with Web pressed against him in a dark room, and nobody around to question them, no holes to punch in each other.

It’s maddening. Maddening that they ever got here in the first place.

A long sigh meets the skin at the back of his neck, and Web’s hand expands in his own. 

“Are you awake?” Joe whispered lowly.

Web’s legs stretch out against him, and he allows his own muscles to flow against the other man’s until they lie full-length. “I am,” Web murmurs back, lips brushing against Joe’s neck as he speaks.

Sighing, Joe turned in Web’s arms, his mouth finding the other man’s in a warm, lazy kiss that they trade for a long moment. They shift, Web’s legs making room for the jut of Joe’s knee between them, and slowly wind around each other in the semi-darkness.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Joe said softly, pressing a dry kiss to the corner of Web’s lips.

Moving his head in an imitation of a shake, Web blinked blearily back at him, hand moving to comb through the utter wreck of Joe’s hair. “You were tired,” he said simply, eyes settling on Joe’s with far too much tenderness. “Probably for the best. It will be a long day.”

Another sting of bitterness shot through his chest at the reminder, and Joe only just stopped the familiar thorns of annoyance from popping through, curtailing them at the last second with the true sadness the knowledge was flooding him with. “Long couple of weeks, more like,” he muttered.

Web’s lightly rueful smile indicated he might not be fighting the thorns back as well as he thought, but the fingers moving through the hair behind his ear began to soothe them. “But then you’ll be home,” he reasoned, voice admirably steady. “You’ll be home and you won’t ever have to leave again if you don’t want to.”

Joe lowered his gaze, away from Web’s own open-hearted blue, and instead anchored himself to the sight of his hand where it pressed against the skin of his lover's neck. “Maybe.”

His quiet reticence is tolerated only for the space of a few minutes, after which Web gives a gentle pull on his ear. “What is it, Lieb?” he asks gently.

How can he put it all into words? Joe struggles with himself for a few moments, not wanting to keep looking at Web but being unable to pull his eyes away from the beautiful concern of Web’s parted lips and furrowed brow. “I don't know, I…” he started, before huffing as the words fell heavy in his mouth. “It feels wrong. After all this time, I...I don’t know how to say it.”

Fuck, he wishes Web would stop looking at him so nicely. Wishes Web would stop being so fucking _generous_ with these moods. But he’s not stopping today, if the way he just keeps looking into Joe’s eyes like they have all the time in the world is anything to go by. And that’s stupid, because this is the day that they both have to learn that anything they ever had the past few years was on borrowed time, and now that’s all gone, too. 

“Could you try at least?” Web just encourages, as light as anything.

He asks it so nicely, and Joe’s a fucking sucker for these moments where they’re pressed up against each other in a dark room, warm, and being _Nice_ to each other. Enough of a sucker that he pulls in a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily to try and gather the right words, the best words. Finally, he tries to breathe it all out.

“I think I broke something in me,” he admits quietly. 

“Broke something?”

“Yeah, like...on accident?”

Web’s lips bunch and then smooth out, as though he really is trying to parse out Joe’s message. “I don’t know what you mean, Joe.”

“No, listen, it’s like…” Joe once again needs to gather his thoughts, hand idly moving against Web’s skin, opening and closing as though to grasp at them tangibly. “You know when you’re a kid and you get bored in class? I guess you wouldn’t know about that, right?” he scoffs lightly, taking small comfort in the unimpressed roll of Web’s eyes. “Well, it’s like when you’re bored in class so you start messing with your pencil, and you draw, and you tap it, and you start bending it. Bending it, just to play, but you end up breaking it by accident. I think I did that to myself. Didn’t even know I was doing it.”

It’s a stream of words he doesn’t even realize for what they are until they exist outside of his mouth, floating in the air before falling into Web’s eyes. Eyes which widen incrementally, swimming with a concern that’s actively muting itself so as not to scare Joe away from the moment. 

“Joe,” Web begins, gentle but firm, hand suddenly still against the other man’s face. “You aren’t broken.”

He wants to argue, if only because that’s the level of engagement where he and Web are most comfortable, but he finds the urge plugged up somewhere in the center of his chest. “I don’t know if I’m ready for all of it. To try and go be a whole person,” he confesses quietly, eyes resolutely lowering away from Web’s. “Don’t know if I’ll be any good at it.”

Web’s silence at that manages to draw his eyes back up, only to be met with an almost inscrutable look; all wide eyes and pained, thin lips, and he feels oddly self-conscious. He hasn’t admitted to this much in what feels like a very long while, and in this dark, quiet moment, he doesn’t know if he ever will again. Joe is letting Web in, and he doesn’t do that to just any motherfucker on the street. 

“Aren’t you worried?” he presses, cringing at the defensive heat that’s creeping into his voice. 

The continued silence only turns up the heat under his skin, but Web at least seems to be on his own train of thought, lip pulling up between his teeth momentarily before releasing. “No, I’m not,” Web admits, though his voice is as thin as crepe. “If anything, I’m worried for you.”

Joe wants to heave an enormous sigh. That’s what he had wanted to avoid. “Don’t worry about me,” he settled, palm flattening against Web’s neck. “Don’t.”

Web’s hand moves from cradling Joe’s head, trailing over his neck to sweep up the hand Joe had on his neck, lacing their fingers together and resting their joined form against his skin. “Will you do something for me?” 

He has to close his eyes for a few seconds, the knowledge that they are now at the point where they can start to make Last Wishes to each other washing over him. “I guess so,” he murmurs, a hint of resentment still at the edges of his words. 

Web’s hand tightens in his own, fingers clasping his own with firm conviction, but his eyes are clear and gentle. “Go home. Please. You deserve to go home,” he continues, voice steady as Joe’s hand goes somewhat limp in his own. “If anyone deserves it, it’s you. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” he tries to argue, but his voice is as weak as his hand in Web’s.

Web seems to realize this, and he smiles. “Well, if you’re ever afraid again, for any reason, will you at least remember that I asked you not to be?” he asks lightly, but his words are too much for Joe, who has no choice but to kiss him.

Kiss him, and soundly, too. Properly, with hot breath and scant moisture between their lips. When they separate he can see a faint pinkness to Web’s cheeks, and between his pink cheeks, his blue eyes, his mussed nest of hair, his unashamed nakedness, there is very little Joe can deny him. 

“I can try,” he promises.

Web smiles again, and it feels more real and yet somehow immeasurably more sad. “That’s good,” he nods. “That’s enough.”

Enough for the moment. And enough for the moment will have to be enough for eternity.

They’re locked into another kiss as fast as anything, Joe pushing and angling Web onto his back so he could press himself above his lover, humming in satisfaction at the feeling of Web’s legs moving up to cradle him. He runs his hands through Web’s hair, shivering at the sensation of the other man's hands scratching down his back, just on the edge of too hard. The light sting prompts him to pull up from the kiss, kissing along the other man’s jaw until he locks eyes on the bite mark he had imprinted into the side of Web’s neck. It was bigger than he thought it would be, and he took pleasure in the wine-rich color against the paleness of Web’s skin that would almost definitely stretch up and over his collar.

Almost definitely.

But that didn’t stop him from leaning down and nipping at the edges some more.

Web yelped, hand flying to grasp at Joe’s shoulder, tightly but not halting. Joe took mercy on him, letting his mouth suck at the mark and his longue gently lave over it before licking up the side of Web’s neck, where he could feel his pulse thundering already. He pulled their mouths back together, moaning at the play of their tongues against each other and the renewed sting of Web’s nails scratching down his back only to smack at his ass.

When he pulls his mouth away this time Web has a small, almost excited smile on his own lips.

“That’s how you want to play it?” Joe asked, breath heavy.

“Who’s playing?” Web countered. 

Fair enough.

He licked into Web’s mouth messily once more, before beginning a sloppy trail of kisses from Web’s face, down his neck, and to his chest, where he paused to lick restlessly at the other man’s nipples. Beneath him Web sighed shakily, hands running through Joe’s hair, before jolting briefly as Joe pinched at his chest. Joe moved on quickly, before Web could find an excuse to slap at his head, and resumed his trail, kissing down his lover's abs.

“Joe…” Web whispered, almost dreamily.

“Want it,” he whispered back harshly. “Want it one more time.”

He can almost hear the sound of Web swallowing. “Alright.”

The dip of his head between the spread of Web’s legs comes as naturally as breathing, and he feels a shudder go all down the length of his spine at the realization that the feeling of a dick in his mouth is now quite, quite familiar. He’s learned a lot about himself the last couple of years.

Web gasps above him, hand flying to grasp at Joe’s hair. “Lieb -”

Joe hummed, relishing in the ensuing moan the feeling created, and immediately began bobbing his head to his own steady rhythm, anchoring his hand around the base of Web’s cock. Though the hand in his hair tightened, sending pleasure straight through him once more, Web fought not to thrust up into his mouth, thighs tightening up with the restraint. But Joe would let him if that’s what he wanted, would let Web do a million things to him here, in this bed, if that’s what he wanted. If that’s what would get them to stay. 

Pushing these thoughts back, Joe attempted to focus singularly on movement of his mouth on Web’s dick, his hand following him on every upstroke. Curling his tongue around the underside of his lover’s cock, he let his eyes be drawn up to catch a glimpse at Web and found his eyes already caught. Web’s fluttering eyes bore into his own with a tangible fever, the apples of his cheeks glowing, and his mouth fell open to gasp breathlessly at the incessant sucking heat of Joe’s mouth.

Impulsively, he takes his hand from the other man’s cock, pushing up on his thigh to raise and spread it. Briefly pulling off, he sweeps his fingers around his mouth before dipping to retake Web’s dick while he firmly pressed into his lover’s hole. 

A perhaps too loud cry ricocheted around the room, the hand in Joe’s hair giving a distractedly harsh yank. Inside Web is still tight, but now his moistened fingers know the ways to stretch him, have already familiarized the path to that spot that drove them both wild last night. He finds it so fast that he’s smirking around Web’s cock while he speeds up his rhythm, his fingers working Web over into a writhing, moaning mess.

“ _Lieb!_ ” Web sobbed, hips now shamelessly thrusting up into Joe’s mouth and back down onto his fingers. “Lieb, fuck, oh, _fuck_ -”

 _Give it all up_ , he wants to growl against Web’s skin, eyes watering at the hard thrust, _give it all to me_. Instead he sucks Web’s cock down into his throat, fingers brutally dragging over his spot, and darts his eyes back up to watch the bit of his lover’s face he could see as the muscles of his thighs began to contract and quake.

“Joe, I’m coming -” Web gasped breathlessly. “I- I’m coming -”

He pulled his mouth back just enough to greedily gather the hot release of Web’s come into his mouth, humming in satisfaction once again at the feeling spreading across his tongue. Pleasure buzzed all around his head and throbbed deep in his own cock, and the combined desire and giddiness at a job well done had him swallowing down Web’s load, which was a semi-first for him. He let Web’s softening dick fall from his mouth gracelessly, planting a sloppy kiss against the thigh he had been tightly grasping as he gently withdrew his fingers from Web’s hole.

Web was still catching his breath, his chest rising and falling harshly, with one hand brushing his hair up and away from his flushed face. His eyes cracked open, and their blue depths were glazed with satisfaction when they landed on Joe, kissing along Web’s lower stomach.

“Come here,” he implored softly, reaching to grasp at the sides of Joe’s face. “Come here, liebling.”

Joe went easy, letting Web pull him back up along his body until they lay facing each other once again. Web carded his fingers through Joe’s sweat-dampened bangs, their mouths slotting together in a wet mess of a kiss that smeared along past their mouths, ending with Web trailing his lips along the edge of Joe’s jaw to nibble at his ear. He groaned roughly at the feeling of Web’s hand palming over his swollen cock, clutching at the other man’s shoulders.

Web fisted his cock, stroking him surely in a loose rhythm. He knew he was slick enough with precum by now to not need anything extra, and let his hips piston up into Web’s grasp to spur him on faster. An ungodly whimper rippled out of his mouth as Web took the hint, tightening his hand minutely in a grip that ghosted between too hard and just hard enough.

“I have you,” Web rasped against his throat. “Let go.”

His fingers dug in deeper to the skin of Web’s shoulders as his lover’s thumb rolled up and over the head of his dick, down again, and back up, unendingly it seemed. Joe choked out a weak moan, his eyes fighting to stay open as his hips thrust up erratically into Web’s grip, chasing the building, burning feeling in his veins -

He expected to scream, to let all of his repressed feelings from the last few days out through his mouth, coaxed from him with nothing but Web’s hand.

Instead, he came silently; mouth open wide in a paralyzed scream, flush spreading over his neck and shoulders as he spilled over Web’s hand. For the space of a few moments it truly seemed as though he might never breathe again, that he would remain frozen in this paroxysm of heat and desire and sadness and anger forever.

But breath flooded back into him like water into a sinking ship, and if Web is expecting his bruising grip on his shoulders to go away then he is sorely mistaken. If anything his embrace becomes even tighter, crushing Web’s body to his own with as much strength as he can muster and then some, shivering at the tickle of Web panting against his neck. 

“That was good,” Web breathed, lips brushing against flushed skin. “That’s good, Lieb.”

Swallowing, Joe turned his face to nose into Web’s damp hair. “Good…”

Web kissed his neck once more, before angling himself back up to lick softly into Joe’s mouth, breath moving gently between them. “How much time?” he murmured.

Reluctantly, he turned his head to try and hazard a glance at the clock on the bedside table, now visible in the growing light. Feeling his stomach drop, not unlike jumping out of a plane, he placed a kiss against Web’s temple. “None.”

They dressed in near silence, washing up side by side in the bathroom, stripping the bed and mussing the couch to look slept in. Joe pocketed what remained of his Vaseline, and he glimpsed Web slipping what remained of the whiskey into his pack. Finally, they stood before each other: two men. He ran his eyes over Web’s form discerningly, searching out any speck of lint, any wrinkled edge in need of straightening, and found none. Web appeared, at least in part, to be doing the same to him and similarly finding nothing in need of correcting. They are, at least in this moment, perfect.

“I’ll um…” Joe started, clearing his throat briefly. “I’ll go down first, alright?”

Web nodded, eyes bright. “Alright.”

“And then you.”

“Then me.”

Joe can’t help it, he reaches out to grasp the back of Web’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss that tastes like toothpaste and hotel mouthwash, stinging and sweet. Web’s hand cups the side of his face, palm warming his cooled skin as they slowly kissed again and again, a catch and release of everything unsaid.

“I promised you something,” Joe whispered, face scant inches away from Web’s own. “Will you promise me something?”

Web nods instantly, face set in a devastated mask. “Anything,” he breathes, before: “Everything.”

Somehow, that’s all he wanted to hear. Joe pulls Web into another searing kiss, paying no mind to their pressed, perfect clothes as he felt the familiar warmth of his lover’s body against him. He’s never going to forget this, not in a million years and not for anything would he put this out of his mind. He’ll forget anything else, anything so long as he could keep this feeling inside him for the rest of his days.

But the rest of those days begin now.

“Alright,” Joe choked, lips breaking free from Web’s. “Bye.”

“Goodbye,” Web replied weakly, pulling Joe forward into another kiss.

They kiss sloppily, before again Joe pulls away. He re-thinks this almost immediately, and dips back in for another more chaste kiss. “Bye.”

Web accepts. “Bye,” he nods, surely, before they both surge forward in a smacking kiss that almost seems to move all the way through their bodies like a wave, slowly receding and pulling their hands from each other’s bodies. 

They separate, minutely, but keep their faces close. Web is zeroed in on him, eyes unflinching but utterly wounded, and Joe knows it’s his job to pull the bandage off for the both of them.

He allows himself one more kiss, just off the center of Web’s forehead, before he practically rips himself from Web’s side, who physically turns from him as though in search of clearer air. He doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t allow himself a look back until the door is nearly closed. All he can see before the door shuts on them for good is what looks to be Web, shoulders dropped, hands against his face.

* * * 

He jolted awake at the almost tangible thrum of voices in the air around him, and groaned briefly into the pillow over his face as awareness slowly sank back into his bones. As he became more and more aware the sound just increased, thudding along past the thin defense of his pillow as though it were nothing (which it practically was, mind as well be two scraps of fabric sewn together). Pulling it from his face he was thankful for the shoddy lighting here in the hold, at least his eyes were spared their own assault crammed over here in the corner with the members of Easy lucky enough to get this passage. 

“From the dead, eh Lieb?” 

Grimacing he turned his stiff neck to glare across at Babe and McClung, playing cards on the opposite bunk. “What time’sit?” he slurred, fumbling automatically for his smokes. 

“Not quite dinnertime, pal,” Luz drawled from the bunk above the card-playing pair.

“Christ,” Joe muttered, sticking one between his lips and taking a long drag as it lit. “Thought this shit was fucking miserable the first time.”

McClung hummed, barely sparing a glance back at him. “You’re not getting into fist fights this time.”

“Want one?” Joe inquired, smoke streaming through his nose.

“No.”

“Yeah, alright then.”

“Boys, don’t fight,” Luz toned distractedly, flipping at a magazine.

Joe rolled his eyes, raising his smoke back to his lips. “Fuckin’ near to a week of this, ready to fucking -”

“Jesus H, Lieb, you wanna give it a rest?” Babe cut in snappishly, shooting Joe an irritable glare. “You’d think you were heading into another fuckin’ war altogether the way you’re moaning.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, craning his head past the bunk in front of him where Pat was occupying himself tying a complicated knot with a spare bit of rope, peering around to catch a glimpse at the empty bunk beyond. “Where’s Web?”

Luz glanced up from his magazine, as though reminding himself that the other man was no longer there. “Dunno, he and Cobb took off a while ago.”

“Cobb?” Joe questioned critically.

“To each their own,” Luz shrugged, flipping a page.

Scowling, Joe pushed back the urge to grumble about it more. Not like it’s any of his business anymore who Web chooses to spend his time with, is it? Even if that person is fucking Cobb, who nobody has been able to stand since before Market Garden, and who had made it his mission since Haguenau to rake Web over the coals every chance he gets.

None of his goddamn business. 

“Fuck’s that about?” Joe grumbled. 

“Anyone wants to spend time with that asshole, that's their problem,” Luz responded dully, eyes not leaving his page. 

“Web or Cobb?” Babe questioned, tossing down a card.

“Either one,” McClung said automatically. 

“Alright,” Joe bit brusquely, before grimacing at his own defensiveness. “Web ain’t half bad.”

“Nobody’s half bad on land, on a boat is a whole different story,” Pat muttered, frowning down at the tangle in his hands.

Luz snickered. “Any chance of this thing hitting an iceberg?”

Babe looked quizzically up towards Luz’s bank. “What’s that about icebergs?”

“Christ, it was a joke, Heff - ”

Shaking his head, Joe swung his legs over the edge of his bunk, feet jostling Skinny’s bunk and garnering a curse from the dozing man, dropping down to land heavily on the floor. “I’m going to catch some air, your fucking yammering is too much.”

“Yeah, get the good air, Joe,” McClung called after him as he began shoving his way through the crowded aisle. “Don’t fall overboard!”

“I’m on a fuckin’ ship of fools,” Joe muttered, shouldering past a group of guys crowded around a nudie magazine to begin taking the stairs two at a time. “Damn it.” 

If he had thought sailing the goddamn high seas with hundreds of battle-ready nervous nellies looking to fight anything and everyone _before_ was bad it couldn’t possibly compare to the hundreds of weary, manically victorious soldiers he’s trapped amongst now. It’s no help that they’ll almost certainly have to spend the holidays on the ship, promises from the brass be damned, which added an extra layer of relieved irritation pulsing through the ship like an electric shock. At this point in the journey they’re all like alcoholics jonesing for a pull on the bottle, shaking and desperate for the thick hit of home on their tongues.

Joe rolled his eyes, winding his way up the metal staircases and along the crowded hallways of the upper decks, where he could hear the sounds of lightly jubilant carols echoing from room to room, the clatter of the mess hall readying itself for dinner, the ever-present chatter of other men.

He’d give anything for silence. He hasn’t had a quiet moment in a thousand years.

(Had he been in the room with Web a thousand years ago? Could be.)

Maybe it isn’t actually quiet he wants after all.

Just as the thought begins to ghost along the edges of his mind, the familiar slope-shouldered figure of Cobb is hopping down the stairs from the main deck, where a gray day casts thin light over his pinched face. He brushes past Joe, who feels almost embarrassingly nonplussed at the fact that the asshole can’t even say hello to a fellow company man, before Cobb’s voice reaches him. 

“Not right now,” he says casually, giving his back to Joe as he continues on his way.

Joe blinks. “The fuck are you saying?”

Cobb turns to him briefly, barely pausing to look him up and down, before pivoting right back the way he was going. “He wants to be alone.”

He’s gone as fast as he appeared, leaving nothing but heat flaring across Joe’s neck and over his chest under his clothes. Well now he _has_ to fucking talk to Web.

The burst of cold air from the deck hitting his warmed skin was a scant relief, but the way the temperature seemed to settle into his very bones almost the second he breathed it in was not a welcome one, as though the cold had never truly left him and had instead been lying in wait for the next moment to strike. Attempting to shrug off the not even truly insurmountable chill, Joe took a glance around the sparsely occupied cargo deck, which these days housed more wayward soldiers than it did actual tanks, and didn’t catch sight of Web. There was barely anyone willing to stand out on the deck with this gray, miserable chill, but he supposed if anybody wasn’t going to be bothered by it Web would be the one.

He was rewarded for his search when he rounded around the corner into the long, roofed promenade-style deck, to spot Web staring out over the ocean below, cigarette in hand. 

Joe swallowed. They haven’t really spoken since they left each other in England, but they’ve been near and around each other pretty much constantly. Near enough that he got to shift uncomfortably in his seat, chain smoking, as the other guys ribbed Web for the dark bite peeking over his collar until Web was nearly apoplectic and Joe was ready to jump overboard. 

There’s no reason they shouldn’t talk, he decided. None at all. 

That isn’t to say he feels like he doesn’t deserve a pat on the back for growing a pair and beginning to cross over to Web with steadier steps than he knew he was capable of. Web doesn’t register his approach, but Joe knows by now that Web in front of water is a Web lost to the world. He hates that he knows that. 

Joe quashes down a pleased tremble in his stomach at the way Web’s eyes blink over to him, before warming as he leans up beside him against the railing. “Heard the news?” Joe asked, shaking another cig out from his pack.

Brow furrowing, Web gave a shake of his head. “What news?”

“Movie tonight. Heard it’s a real one, going to win awards and everything.”

Web wrinkled his nose. “A Joan Crawford picture winning an award? Not very likely.”

Joe chuckled, smoke streaming through his nose. “How’d you know Crawford was in it?”

“Roy made friends with a couple of the guys who handle the canisters,” Web answered, taking a final drag of his cig before flicking it off.

The mention of Cobb’s name threatened to sour his mood once again, and he took a step closer to Web, voice lowering against the light wind. “Yeah, speaking of, you been saying anything to him?”

Frowning, Web blinked a few times, eyes shooting back out over the water briefly in thought. “Nothing about us, if that’s what you mean.”

Chewing his cheek, Joe shook his head and brought his smoke back up to his lips. “Alright.”

“Why do you ask?” Web asked, suddenly looking appropriately concerned. 

“Caught me on the way up here, is all,” Joe explained away. “Acted like he knew I was coming to see you.”

“Were you?” Web asked, voice carefully oblique.

“No, I- Well, I mean, yeah, but,” Joe fumbled, shaking his head once again, and feeling himself warming again at the way Web’s eyes traced every movement of his face. “Guess I thought I might run into you,” he settled, fighting back a scowl at the small smile creeping over Web’s lips. “If you weren’t too busy cozying up to fucking Cobb, that is.”

Immediately the smile was replaced by a roll of Web’s eyes as he turned slightly to give his profile to Joe and look back out over the gray expanse of the sea and the sky beyond. “Please, ‘cozying up’? What a laugh.”

“Well, you ain’t laughing and neither am I, so.”

Sighing, Web looked back at him momentarily, an annoyed set to his lips. “I’m allowed to be friends with people you don’t like, Joe. And just because I’m friends with someone doesn’t mean I go flapping my gums to them about you and me, alright?”

Joe stubbornly stayed put, turning to face the same direction as Web, sternly keeping his eyes on the horizon. “Why you’d want to be friends with that asshole after the way he treated you is beyond me, Webster.”

Web chuckled. “I could say the same about the way _you_ were to me. Why should I give you the benefit of the doubt and nobody else?”

Swallowing, Joe flushed again, and goddamn his face must look insane right now, probably best to just keep his face turned. “It’s different,” he muttered.

He could feel Web’s eyes against his cheek but couldn’t bear to look, and felt the familiar knot inside him loosen gently at the gentle exhale of breath from the other man.

“You’re right,” Web admitted lowly, turning his own face back to the water. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

Joe wished he could trust himself just enough to reach out and touch Web. Just the smallest, most innocent touch, a pat on the back, maybe, or the knock of a shoulder against another. But he couldn’t, not even now with the space of a week to catch his breath and begin to repair the parts of his being that Web had returned to him, bitten up and smothered. Instead, he found himself gently nodding back to the admission, and staying as still as stone.

“Well,” he breathed, eyes glancing aside to Web. “You’re right, too.”

Their eyes met, finally, once again, and Joe had to pause and just stare for a moment at the realization that Web’s eyes were even bluer than the gray sea before them, and immeasurable more clear, at that. Whatever Web was reading in Joe’s own darkened depth he couldn’t be sure, but whatever Joe contained must be enough for him, as he smiles.

“Joe,” he began, before pulling his lip between his teeth and releasing it in the space of a second. “I’ve been thinking. We’re still friends, right?”

“Fuck, of course,” Joe practically choked, before clearing his throat. _We’re friends_ , he thought, _I just can’t fucking bear to look at you, or meet your eyes, or touch you, ever._

Web nodded, a seeming relief passing over his body as he turned to give his front to Joe once again. “Well, would you mind if I wrote you once we’re back?”

Joe blinked. “Yeah...yeah, sure, I mean, if you want.”

“I just-” Web began, before second guessing, and closing his mouth briefly. “I don’t think I’d be able to handle never speaking to you again, is all. I miss you already,” he rushed in a harsh half-whisper. “That must make me pretty pathetic, right?”

“No,” Joe bit, reaching out before he truly knew that he was, and taking a hold of Web’s forearm, grasping it gently before almost instantaneously pulling his hand back in towards his own body. “No, you should,” he said a little louder, as though the moment of contact had not happened at all. “Can’t promise I’ll be much use writing back, but I can do my best.”

The smile Web gives him is enough to make his head open up and let birds fly right out of his skull. Nothing but air, and light. “Alright,” he nodded, one hand floating to his forearm to run at the spot that Joe had briefly held. “You’ll need to get me your address.”

Joe nodded back, dazed. “I’ll do that, yeah.”

Web glanced past him towards the bow of the ship, where guys were beginning to disperse back indoors. “We should head back in, it’s almost time to eat.”

He felt himself nodding again, and had to quickly catch himself to stop jiggling his head like a goddamn bobble-head. “Right,” Joe coughed, eyes following Web as he made to step past him, and a wild impulse tore through him. “Hey, you want to sit together for the movie tonight?”

Web paused, looking back at him as though Joe had just gotten on one knee, a curious light entering his eyes even as his mouth remained frozen and silent in a familiar gape. 

Joe began to feel self-conscious at the delayed reaction, swiping a hand up through his hair. “If you’re going, that is. If you’d rather -”

“No,” Web shook his head, before closing his eyes in a grimace. “I mean, yes, I’d like to.”

“You would?”

“Yes. Yes, yes.”

His stomach twisted in a mixture of anxiety and pleasure, and he found the corners of his mouth twisting up into a playful leer. “You sure Roy won’t mind?”

Web’s _'Ha!'_ bounced around the air before landing right next to Joe’s heart, and his blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “You all sell him short, he’s actually a lot more fun than everyone gives him credit for,” he says, beginning to turn back once again. “Trust me, we almost made out once.”

An electric shock went straight through Joe’s body, and his jaw dropped open in a smile that was at once scandalized and delighted. _“What?”_ he exclaimed, irritated at the way Web just continued on his goddamn way. “Web!”

Laughing again, Web looked back over his shoulder at Joe, cheeks pink. “It was before!” he called out, before he was gone back into the depths of the ship. 

A punch-drunk laugh trickled out of him as his eyes stayed locked on the spot Web had just been, and Joe could only hang his head and laugh for a few moments at the fact that any breath he’d caught steering clear of Web this past week had just been stolen from him. 

* * *

Joe allowed himself a fair bit of pride at the fact that he was right about the movie, which, despite Web’s misgivings about Crawford, was proving to be very good indeed. Not good enough that it captivated the vast majority of the guys, who had shown up to see it and then been handily bored to tears by the trials and tribulations of being a mother and bowed out not even halfway through the film.

The already modest screening room was perhaps more quiet than Joe had ever known it to be, with only a few of the more reserved guys sticking around to see out the rest of the story. Beside him Web was watching intently, a questioning tilt to his lips at the unfolding of the mystery and a wry smile at the clever jokes. Joe couldn’t help himself at stealing as many glances towards Web as he did at the screen proper, unable to shake the distinct feeling that with just a few subtle changes he could very well be with Web at the movies in his neighborhood, soaking up the darkness and the intimacy of their proximity, their shoulders close enough to touch if either of them shifted just the slightest bit. 

_A date_ , he thinks, thanking the darkness for the way it hides the embarrassed grimace on his face. _We could be on a date right now._

Giving his head a clearing shake, he reached down between them for his pack of smokes and recoiled as his hand made contact instead with Web’s hand, pulling idly at a thread on his pants. Joe glanced aside to Web, whose head remained resolutely forward, though Joe could see the glint of his eyes angled in his direction. Swallowing, he reached his hand back down, slowly, intently back towards his pack, and jumped slightly as the back of Web’s hand moved to gently brush his knuckles against Joe’s own hand.

Breathing out a shaky breath that he hoped to God Web couldn’t hear, Joe stole another glance around the darkened room, taking measure of the few remaining guys who remained zeroed in on the screen, up at Joan Crawford’s big, beautiful face. _Nobody’s looking_ , he assured himself, _nothing to see._

Web’s knuckles continued to brush over the side of Joe’s hand, and after a measured moment Joe let his hand move back to meet it, the backs of their hands softly moving together, knuckles slotting and moving over each other like waves, every nerve heightened and every hair felt. They shouldn’t be doing this, and he knows it, knows they said goodbye in England and now they’re just poking at a fucking bruise, but fuck it feels good to touch Web even this little bit.

His fingers stretch out into the darkness and Web’s own branch out to meet them, catching in a backwards embrace, sliding against and between and around each other. The moment they curl into a hold they unfurl again, caught in a nonstop loop of sensation, of delicious forbiddenness.

 _Catch and release,_ Joe thinks, the feeling of their last kiss floating up under his skin. Catch and release with lips, with feelings, and now with their own hands. 

It doesn’t hurt that the feeling of Web’s skin, the awareness of every part of his hand, shoots him straight back into how that same hand feels wrapped around his dick. His breath gets heavier at the memory of the first time Web had done it for him, in the dark of the night in Holland, how he had gasped and mouthed into Web’s neck as he was worked over, how it had been dry and fumbling and terrible and perfect at once.

Glancing back at Web he caught the edge of a heavy swallow moving against the other man’s neck, and knows that Web must be caught in memories of Joe’s own hands as well. 

He expected backsliding to feel worse than this, but he just feels warm. Warm and wanting, and nurtured by the smooth back of Web’s hand. 

By the end of the picture he feels like he mind as well be coated in sugar, floaty and exhilarated as though he and Web had rolled around together and not just sat and touched hands for a while. He sits up that much straighter in his seat as guys begin stretching and standing, drawing his now warm hand back in towards himself, and for the first time looked right at Web’s face, which was turned to Joe with an expectant if slightly daunted look.

“Well,” Joe began, voice rough. “What did you think?”

Still looking curiously dazed, Web nodded to himself. “I loved it,” he said softly.

“Box office poison?”

Web tipped his head back and laughed, dimples on display. “How do you know about that?”

Joe allowed a pleased smile to creep over his own lips, shaking his head in mock modesty. “I lived with six women before all this bullshit, Web, you’d be surprised what I’ve picked up.”

“No worries, Joe, you surprise me every day,” Web said, and Joe could just tell that he meant it to sound more joking than it came out.

Web stood without further preamble, and Joe secretly thanked him for it. The room was clearing quickly, and as warm as the experience had been he knew that if they lingered too long inside of it that it would go cold, and he didn’t rightly think he could stand that. He followed along after a moment, nudging Web’s elbow with his own as he passed, prompting Web to nudge him right back with a smile.

“I think she shoulda turned her in,” Joe remarked casually as they filed out and down the hall back towards their keep. “She was good to shoot him, though.”

“You’ll get no arguments from me there, Lieb,” Web nodded.

Joe looked aside with a smile, reveling in the easy way Web’s eyes locked onto his own again. “You don’t know what that does to me.”

“What? Me agreeing with you?”

“Oh yeah,” Joe nodded, pulling in an exaggerated breath. “Downright filthy.”

Web hummed, seeming to think. “Well, what did you think about her ending up with -“

“I thought that was alright, I did,” Joe cut in as they descended the stairs.

“I have to agree again,” Web smiled.

Joe groaned, head tipped back in mock ecstasy. “What about her losing the -”

“Oh, I didn’t like that,” Web wrinkled his nose. “They just wanted to punish her for being a working woman.”

Sucking his teeth, Joe shook his head. “Well, two outta three isn’t bad for us, right?” he questioned, swearing that he was soaking up the little laugh Web let bubble out. “That’s one thing I know I’m looking forward to back in the states, getting to pick and choose what movie I want to go see and when.”

“I never went to too many movies before all this,” Web shook his head. “Was never all that interested. Unless they had Olivier in them.”

“I can’t really picture you at the movies, anyway,” Joe said, considering. “Can’t picture you doing much of anything, to be honest, sort of figured the second we were back you’d go live in the basement of a library for 30 years.”

Web came dangerously close to rolling his eyes but ended up just fondly glowering at him. “You think I’m the Phantom of the Opera? Is that what you’re saying?”

“He’s the one with the cape, right?”

“He is one of the ones with the cape, yes.”

Joe snickered as they finally descended back down into their bunk, surrounded once again by the rumbling chatter of multitudes of other men, many of whom were slowly starting to bed down for the night. He couldn’t help a slight, almost regretful mood sink into him as they began making their way back towards their area; it had been nice to allow himself to get lost again, to let Web sweep him up into a swirling cosmos of warmth and familiarity, two things he’s had so little of the last few years. The sudden jolt of other people in their world was an unpleasant and nearly overstimulating affair, one which quickly burned away the blue edges of his regret to present bitterness instead. 

The usual suspects are laughing as they approach, all focused in on Luz’s bunk, where the man in question is leaning out over the edge of his bunk with his magazine in hand. 

“Hey, hey!” he called, giving a wave of the magazine. “Web, what’s your sign?”

“His what?” Joe coughed incredulously. 

“Sign,” Skinny explained from his lower bunk, feet kicked up. “George’s magazine has some kind of personality test, guess your sign is real important.”

“Web, sign,” Luz nudged again.

Web blinked momentarily before giving in with a shake of his head. “I’m a Gemini.”

A chorus of _‘oh’s_ erupted from the amassed men, who proceed to collapse into a round of laughter at the admission. Joe could see the tips of Web’s ears go pink as he gave an annoyed huff at the reaction, glaring around at their buddies in search of some explanation. 

“What?” he asked, beseechingly. “What?”

“Easy, pal, so am I.” Luz flipped the page of his magazine, eyes scanning over the pages. “Twins, duality, communication, creativity, ya-da ya-da ya-da” he listed, before chucking to himself. “Talkative with short attention spans, isn’t that just us, Web?”

Web scoffed, turning to climb up to his bunk without further preamble. “Oh, please.”

“George, do Lieb,” Babe called.

“Yeah, Lieb what’s your sign?” Skinny grinned from his perch at the edge of his own bunk.

Joe rolled his eyes. “None of your business is what,” he said, stepping up onto Skinny’s bunk to hoist himself back up into his own. 

Or, he was going to until Skinny grabbed a hold of his tags, handily choking him before he calibrated to try to shove the other man away by his head. “Damn it, get off me!” Joe cried, grimacing as Skinny just laughed and tightened his grip, drawing the chain closer to his face, the chain digging into his neck. “My fucking birthday isn’t on my tags, you fucking idiot!”

“It’s on the star, I’ve seen it,” Skinny said simply, bypassing the tags completely to take the Magen David that rested beside them between his fingers.

Joe’s attempts to escape froze up as the star was touched, muscles tightening where he had been holding himself up and pushing Skinny back. His folks had given him that, had spent real money on it, too. “That’s expensive, asshole, don’t fucking -”

“Then hold still, shit,” Skinny muttered, looking close at the star, where Joe knew his birth was engraved as small as an ant on the globe, and just barely held himself back from asking the other man how he’d seen it at all. 

“What’s the verdict, Skinny?” Luz called.

“May 17th,” Skinny replied, still pulling at the chain. “19- christ, Joe, stop moving. 19...” his voice trailed off as he squinted down at the engraving carefully in the dim light, before he chuckled in surprise. “1915?”

“Get _off_ ,” Joe ground out, successfully pushing the other man out of his orbit, his star and his tags landing back on his chest with a comforting weight as he continued back up onto his bunk. 

“Shit, Lieb, are you _30 years old?_ ” Babe asked, grin reaching astronomical proportions. “That can’t be right.”

“Check it out,” Pat laughed next to him. “This old man looks younger than I do.”

“Shut the fuck up, alright?” Joe bit out irritably, thanking the universe that he wasn’t starting to flush up. He hazarded a glance over at Web’s bunk, barely concealing the furtiveness of the look, where the man himself was looking back at Joe with a curiously raised brow, the turn of his lips almost flagrantly pleased.

“A man of the world,” Web drawled, tone just teasing enough that the guys laughed, but low enough that Joe was reminded of the heat of his hands and his mouth and his -

“Don’t sweat it, Lieb, I bet those California girls are going to be all over you now,” McClung laughed up at him. “A mature fighting man, and all.”

“Say it with me, fellas,” Luz crowed, magazine held between his spread fingers as he looked playfully between the men. “Great big -”

“Soft titties!” chorused around the assorted bunks, drawing laughter from the surrounding men. 

Joe just managed to smile, choking out a half-convincing laugh as he took another look back at Web. The warm pleasure of just a moment before had been replaced with a coolly resigned expression, Web’s mouth straightened into an emotionless line as he cast his eyes down and away from Joe’s gaze, before turning to his pack to pull out his notebook, giving his back to the rest of the guys.

Babe groaned. “Tell us about her again, Joe,” he said, leaning back into his sprawl. “I gotta have something to put under my pillow, you know?”

Web’s back remained turned, and the sudden aloofness blocked up Joe’s throat for a moment, before familiar anger warmed his veins again. “Fuck off,” he muttered, turning his own back to the guys as he settled down into his bunk, pulling his meagre pillow over his head.

“Typical Taurus,” Luz said sagely.

* * *

Christmas Day was a bleak affair, not that Joe took much notice of it. The day was somehow quieter than usual, interspersed by periods of forced jovialness, and the mood all around the ship was one of simple exhaustion; the last conventional hope that had been sold, Home by Christmas, had failed to materialize, and that last gasp had them all eager to close the book on this entire experience. The chow that day had been alright but nothing special, the conversation continuous but empty, and the ocean before them wide, wide, wide. He found himself staring down into the ocean that afternoon as they steamed forth and yet seemed to gain no ground, marveling at the solidness of the water and the distinct impression it gave him of having no bottom, no beginning and no ending.

 _Not unlike a war,_ he imagined Web saying.

Joe scoffed, tossing his cigarette out into the distance. “One above and one below, alright,” he muttered.

Web pulled away again. He’s taking this probably harder than he should by virtue of them agreeing not to do this kind of shit anymore. Not with each other, at least.

Joe rolled his eyes at the thought of Web tolerating anyone else enough to -

 _Stop,_ he thinks. And he does. Or he tries.

That morning, between the sham of order that was still being imposed, he’d caught sight of Cobb sat up on Web’s bunk, paging through a threadbare paperback as Web looked over a couple loose pages, eyes narrowed. The image filled him with such unabashed irritation that he tossed himself down from his bunk and stumbled his way out onto the deck even before food. 

It isn’t that he’s jealous. He’s not. If anything, the one he’s angry with is himself because he can’t even be trusted to sit next to Web without pulling some dumbass shit like trying to hold hands, and Web has always stayed on the other side of whatever division Joe has drawn between them until Joe inevitably reaches back over it to yank him close again. It’s embarrassing how easy it looks for Cobb to just sit there when Joe can’t do it himself.

And yeah, maybe he is a little miffed that this looks so easy for Web, but that’s his goddamn right to feel that way.

Fuck it.

Which is exactly the energy he allows to propel him straight up to Web on their way back from chow, sidling up beside him and practically knocking his shoulder into the wall with his eagerness. 

“You and Cobb got a little book club happening, that it?” he rushed out in a tone desperately attempting to be quiet, even as his words fought to punch straight out through his teeth.

Web had looked back at him in surprise, eyes wide. “What?”

“Looked like a nice morning for you, Web, real stimulating.”

All of a sudden Web had rolled his eyes and levelled a dark look back at Joe, pausing in the hall and halting their journey. “You’re just disgusting enough to think something like that, Joe,” he spat, but his face was already going pink with discomfort. “I was just reading a letter for him. He and his girl are having some sort of extended disagreement, he wanted a second opinion before he sends it out back at home.”

Joe huffed. “Real nice of you.”

Web had cocked his head, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Are you really upset that I read a letter or is this something else?”

“Well, I got -” Joe had started, heated, before snapping his mouth shut and brushing past Web and up to the outer deck.

He’s fucking up. He’s fucked up. 

The boat can’t dock soon enough all of a sudden, and he can only grit his teeth as he wanders back down to their keep. The sooner he says goodbye to all of this shit the better, the sooner he can find a dark corner to hide in until he stops feeling so pathetically flimsy and wanting and hurt -

Hurt that radiates at even a glimpse of Web on his bunk, scribbling as the guys around him talk away and not even sparing a glance at Joe as he passes by. _Well, fuck you too, dollface,_ he thinks, hauling himself up into his bunk with unnecessary force, nearly planting his ass directly on the book resting helplessly on his pack.

Joe looks down on it like a particularly dangerous spider for a few moments, before lifting it gingerly, questioning. It’s the one Cobb had been paging through that morning, he recognizes the crinkled, flapping cover, but there’s what appears to be a folded up note sticking just a small ways out from the yellowed pages. He looks over to Web, who has his eyes still lowered down at his notebook, before opening the book up to the apparent note, pulling it out as covertly as he can.

 _Don’t be an asshole,_ he reads.

He smiles down at the endearing slant of writing, like a true fucking sap, before glancing back up and over at Web, who looks back at him with an inscrutable turn of his mouth.

When Web leaves just a while later Joe doesn’t even hesitate to reach into his bag for his broken, almost used up, pencil so he can scrawl his address below Web’s message, tossing it onto the other man’s bunk as he passes for dinner.

He doesn’t know what he wants anymore, if he ever even did. When they were still in Austria he thought he just wanted to be with Web until something better came along, and the end of the war and a ticket back home was certainly better than playing chicken until the other shoe dropped. But he didn’t give himself enough credit for exactly how much time he was actually devoting to thinking about Web, or how much space he had already cleared up within his own just to make room for somebody else. Maybe being able to put this all behind him isn’t going to end up being simple at all. He knows he’s being a sorry fucking soldier for admitting his attempt to outrun all this bullshit is half-hearted at best. 

That’s along the lines of what he’s thinking for the rest of that evening, movements mechanical as he lifts one cig after another up to his lips, chatting aimlessly with the other guys, eyes always searching for Web, just at the periphery of his vision. 

He can feel something inside him opening up, some nameless thing just below his ribs that he didn’t even know was there, spreading itself wide to reveal some deep cavern, as bottomless as the sea, aching to be filled up. He’s never felt this way before, this hopeless and this hopeful at once, and for a moment it feels as though his mind comes forward to live in his eyes and everything becomes impossibly bright.

 _I want it to be you,_ he thinks with a sudden clarity as he watches Web smile his way through the playful ribbing that the other guys are subjecting him to, color high on his cheeks. _I want it to be you that fills me._

The thought is as gentle as a summer breeze, as easy as breathing. 

He realizes with a start just how hard it had been to pretend that it wasn’t easy. 

Joe wants a prize for his bravery, for how long he’s had to be strong, and hard, and lying to himself. He wants a big, shiny prize for how well he’s lied to himself and to the rest of the fucking world, and he wants that prize to be David Webster. 

If he’ll have Joe. 

The surge of openness, of pure coherence, acceptance, makes it nearly impossible to focus on a goddamn thing for the rest of the night, and he’s desperate for sleep and yet unable to even conceive of the thought of sleeping. He wants to say all this to Web’s face, to let the truth pour out of him and into Web, and be done with it all _finally._

He sleeps in fits and starts after the conversation peters out, but his eyes shoot open at regular intervals to catch onto Web’s darkened form just across the way. He repeats the cycle for another few hours, until he opens his bleary eyes to see Web’s bunk empty, and before he’s even fully awake he’s moving to begin lowering himself down to the ground as silently and swiftly as he can. Now’s as good a time as fucking any, he reasons, patting himself on the back for making his way down without waking Skinny. At least this way none of the other guys will be up, and if this goes south he’ll at least have some privacy. 

Joe knows intellectually there are a lot of places that Web could feasibly have gone, but at the back of his mind he knows exactly.

Which brings him up onto the deck, where he realizes that dawn is much closer to truly breaking than he had thought. A thread of gold is pricking at the edges of the horizon, stars already dissolving back into pure sky as the air warms and lightens, but a thin darkness rests on the surface of the water that propels them still onward. He rounds the corner to the covered deck where he had met Web just a few days before, and finds him in almost the exact same spot, body leaning up against the railing, eyes cast out into the distance.

Joe swallows. 

_Now or never, kid,_ he thinks. 

He approaches quietly, and feels the same bizarre weightlessness he felt crossing the dock in Austria, when he hadn’t known what he and Web were to each other, what they _could_ be. Self-consciously, he smooths his hair back from his face as he steps up beside the other man.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, feeling the space beneath his ribs ache with the way Web looks from the water to Joe with the same familiarity, a small smile on his lips.

“Something like that,” Web answers.

Joe laughs softly. “Something like that.”

Web faces him, expression pleased if still somewhat closed off. “You?”

“I saw you weren’t sleeping,” Joe reasoned, aware that this logic probably isn’t nearly as accessible for anybody else but him. “Figured I mind as well come up and keep you company.”

Web frowned, though not exactly displeased. “Is that so?”

Joe can’t help himself, and he lets a bit of the edge out. “Well, you haven’t exactly been easy to pin down these days anyway, you know?” 

He feels a little bad for it, at the way Web’s eyes move away from his own and back towards the sea, corner of his lips pulling in between his teeth before being released. “That was a little by design,” he admits coolly.

“Yeah?”

“Well, yes,” the other man nearly coughs, refusing to look back at Joe, though he can see the furrow to his brow. “Of course it was.”

Joe sighs, taking a step even closer, feeling safer in the quiet of the breaking dawn light. “Listen, Web,” he said, clearing his throat. “I wanted to talk to you.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth Web turns from him fully, one hand moving up over his now hidden face, before he pivots back, pale with downcast eyes. “You don’t need to tell me, I already know.”

“You…” Joe trailed, caught off guard by the heaviness of Web’s voice. “What?”

“I crossed a line the other day, I know that I did,” Web said softly, face set.

Joe sputtered for a moment, a bemused smile breaking out over his face before seeing the still enormously serious look on Web’s face. “You didn’t cross any line,” he says with a shake of his head, placing a hand on Web’s shoulder only to have the other man shrink away from his touch. “Is that why you’ve been fucking avoiding me?”

“Joe, I can’t…” Web began, finally looking back at him with a sheen of frustrated misery in his eyes, pulling in a long breath before breathing it out through his nose. “This isn’t easy for me, you know? It’s not.”

“I know that,” he nods, reaching out for Web again. “Of course I know that.”

“And hearing constantly about what you’re going to go back to, and having to think about what I’m going back to doesn’t make it any easier,” Web broke in, as though he hadn’t paid Joe any mind. The icy blue of his eyes cut across the angles of Joe’s face, and for the first time Joe could see simmering tension bubbling up out of them. “I know it’s impossible,” he said quietly, swallowing once. “But that doesn’t make it feel any better.”

He’s heard enough. “Listen, Web -”

“It’s just easier,” Web blathered on, either ignorant to Joe’s attempts to cut him off or just uncaring. “Easier for me to stay away from you than have to be around you all the time knowing that -”

This time he cuts himself off, eyes guarded, before turning his face away once again to look out. Joe can’t help but chuckle at the melodramatic turn of Web’s mouth, earning himself a sideways glower in the process. “What?” he asks, helpless against the curiosity. 

Sighing again, Web’s jaw clenched tightly before loosening once more. “It’s infuriating,” he starts, eyes anchored into the distance where Joe’s own can’t get to them. “Because I can’t tell if you really do think that you’re going to have what we have with anybody else, or if you’re just playing it up for the rest of the guys the way you did until you realized it doesn’t fucking work on me.”

The air is handily sucked out of his lungs at that. He might have been getting inklings that Web was feeling similarly to him up until this point, but to hear him speak it so plainly, voice tight with emotion, is a different ballgame. “Web…”

“Because you know what?” Web continues, and his voice is harder now, lightning flashing through him as he faces Joe once again. “You aren’t going to be happy with some fat-chested bitch from the valley. I’m it for you. And you’re it for me.”

Joe’s own mouth is dropping open, a maelstrom of surprise, delight, annoyance, and any number of things he’s come to associate with Web swirling into the empty space beneath his ribs. Not only does Web want to be with him, he realizes, but he wants it enough that he’s not even pretending to be the mild-mannered Harvard brat he postures as anymore. _Downright rude,_ he thinks, and has to smile at the ridiculousness of it.

Web must see the smile and interpret it as Joe laughing him straight off the boat, as he bristles. “And you know it’s true,” he bites, face going pink. “And I know it’s true, but we can’t, and I can’t -”

Almost groaning, Joe forgoes reaching out for Web’s shoulder entirely to put his whole hand over the other man’s mouth. “Will you shut the fuck up for two seconds? _No,_ ” he denied forcefully, as Web attempted to shake him off, instead grasping onto the other man’s shoulder tightly. “Because if you shut your trap for once you might hear that I don’t fucking want you to stay away, alright?”

He can feel Web’s mouth going slack beneath his hand, and releases him to get an eyeful of that familiar expression. “What?” Web asks dumbly.

“We tried that shit once already,” Joe reasons, or feels that he does. “It ain’t working for me, and obviously it ain’t working for you.”

“So you think we should…” the other man begins, before the words get lost in his throat, his eyes dancing once again over Joe’s face, but this time full of a dangerous hope. “What?” 

“I want you. I want anything you’ll give me for as long as you’ll give it to me,” Joe says, and his voice is flying out of him like nobody’s business, and the fact that he hasn’t ever spoken like this to anybody else in his life isn’t even making him feel embarrassed, just doubly courageous. “I want to keep my promise and go home, and I want you to finish school, and then I want to be with you.”

Web’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates, zeroed in on Joe with a focus that might normally make him feel like a bug on a pin, but now is simply making him feel horribly, wonderfully wanted. “You…” he starts, voice weak, but gathering strength once more. “You want to be with me?”

The somewhat delayed reaction is starting to make Joe itch, and he gives Web’s collar a small shake where he still grasps him. “Well, fuck, Web,” he chokes out. “Do _you_ want to be with _me?_ ”

Web blinks at him. “Are you serious?”

“Jesus, answer the question.” 

A smile spreads out over the other man’s face, and in the cool, muddled light of the dawn that’s crashing over the water it’s enough to strike awe into him, into his eyes and his brain at once, shooting down his spine and making him brim with light. “Joe,” Web breathes, and his name is virtually a spell, some incantation that draws them both together like drops of water. “Oh, Joe.”

They’re crushed up against one another, meeting in an embrace as tight as bones against each other, as though they had never been apart. Joe turns his face into the enclosure of Web’s neck, breathing him in, and holding him there like smoke, unwilling to release even a fragment of this feeling. His hands dig into the other man’s shoulders, practically clawing at him, as he feels his heart beating harshly up against his chest. The rhythm of relief, and that familiar and exhilarating sensation of flooding _bliss, joy, fear_ echoing back at him from Web’s own heart sends him into a near transcendental state of happiness.

“That’s a yes?” he murmurs into Web’s ear where he holds his head. “You say yes?”

“Everything,” he feels spoken into his skin from where Web’s mouth lands against his own ear. “That’s everything.”

Joe pulls Web’s face away from his orbit, one hand curled into the hairs at the back of his head and the other pushed up under his jaw to hold him still as he drinks in a long look at Web’s pink cheeks and open mouth. “We gotta go somewhere,” he decides.

Web frowns. “Where?”

Blowing a dismissive breath through his lips, Joe shakes his head at the stupidity of the question and the fondness that leaks through him in response. “I don’t know, fucking anywhere out of sight so I can kiss you.”

The smile that greets him is his favorite kind. “Well,” Web practically purrs, his breath ghosting across Joe’s lips. “Lead the way, then, liebling.”

What else does he need to hear?

Nothing, as almost as soon as the words are out of Web’s mouth he’s yanking on the other man’s clothes and together they’re rushing back into the ship and proceeding to jiggle the knob on every door. It’s almost comical, as he starts trying doors on one side and Web starts trying doors on the other, and he finds himself laughing like a kid afraid to get caught in Temple; hard, wracking laughs that practically bend him double, and he pauses to look back over to where Web is leaning up against the wall caught in a fit of his own.

As their eyes meet again Web moves to try the door closest to him, and it opens with a simple twist of the knob. Joe rushes, pushing down his laughter, to immediately shove Web back into the narrow space, hearing the clatter of the other man’s feet either landing in or upturning a bucket of some kind.

“God damn it,” Web gasped breathlessly, before Joe is practically slamming the door behind them and crowding him against the wall to kiss the life out of him. 

_Fuck_ , it feels _fucking_ good.

Web sighs into his mouth almost instantly, falling open for him like a swooning dame with his arms clasped loosely around Joe’s shoulders. Their tongues wind together lazily, relearning the heat of each other as though they weren’t in an honestly incredibly cramped closet with shelves on the wall beside them.

The lips beneath his own are as soft as fucking clouds, and his addiction is re-awakened as they kiss and kiss and then kiss some more, their bodies begin crowding closer together, their breaths mingling. Joe releases Web’s mouth, momentarily catching his breath, before tightening a hand in Web’s hair and lunging back in to take his lips again.

Gasping beneath Joe’s mouth, Web lets himself be plundered, his mouth roughly ravaged, before regaining some semblance of control, seizing Joe’s shirt in his fists so that he can push him up and back against the door. At the impact of his back against the unlocked barrier Joe huffs a bit in discomfort, before pulling Web back in again for a wet, smacking kiss. He winds a leg around Web’s hips, feeling his cock stirring and filling at the pressure of Web’s hips against him.

“Fucking,” he growls as Web kisses along his jaw to suck at his neck. “Missed you…” 

“Yeah?” Web prompts, before biting at the skin of Joe’s neck below his ear, making Joe jump and choke back a yelp. 

Joe nods harshly, pulling in a deep breath as Web sucks at the bite and moves their hips against each other, rocking Joe’s body down on his cock. “Missed your fucking _mouth_.”

Groaning, Web angled back up to kiss Joe deeply, his tongue swiping gently through his mouth before withdrawing again to smile against Joe’s lips. “You don’t know what that does to me.”

He laughs softly at the memory of his own words in Web’s mouth, and rolls his hips down, hissing at the divine ache. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Web sighed against his lips, kissing his way down Joe’s neck before falling to his knees on the darkened floor.

“Oh fuck,” Joe gasped, a dizzying buzz floating through his head. “This door doesn’t lock, you know?”

“Ok,” Web responded mindlessly, already working open Joe’s fly to take hold of his still hardening cock and guide it into his mouth. At the first press of Web’s tongue just under the ridge Joe slammed one hand over his mouth to muffle his deep groan of approval, while the other shot out beside them to grip the shelf adjacent, fingers digging into the cheap, soft wood. 

Hesitating, Joe thrust shallowly into Web’s mouth a few times, shuddering as the other man moaned encouragement around his cock and moved his hands to cup Joe’s hips. Moving his hand down from his mouth to run his fingers through his lover's hair, he couldn’t help but hiss through his teeth at the vibrating heat around his now fully hardened cock. “Fuck, Web, Web…” he whispered. 

He tightened his grip on Web’s dark hair, beginning to thrust a bit more forcefully at the seemingly endless stream of choked off sounds leaking from the pulled edges of Web’s lips. He oughta tell him to be quieter, as it won’t be too terribly long before more and more guys are roaming the halls, but can’t bring himself to do it upon feeling the hot slide of Web’s mouth covering him again before swallowing him down. 

Sparks crackled all along his skin as he rocked over and over into sensation, his mind running wild with memories of he and Web, the memories he’ll carry with him after this boat docks, and it’s different from England. In England these memories made him feel helpless, adrift, but now he feels triumphant, like spun gold is in his veins. _This can be the beginning,_ he thinks, looking down at the pure, pale skin of Web’s face, the electric blue of his eyes, and the beautiful, ruddy smear of his lips around Joe’s dick. 

Web gasped through his nose as Joe’s hand moved down from his hair to cup his jaw gently, thumb moving to tease at the meeting of his cock and Web’s mouth, bobbing his head ceaselessly as he rode out the rhythm of their fucking. 

“You’re so good,” Joe growled as Web tightened his hands against his hips, nearly bruising. “Want your mouth every fucking day -”

He cut himself off at the rumbling moan that moved up his cock as he rutted further into Web’s mouth, chasing a white streak of pleasure that was building up all through his body, pooling deep and nestling into his dick. His hand moved back up to his lover’s hair, petting through its lightly sweating thickness and grasping uncontrollably as his hips began thrusting without his control.

“Web, Web, Web -” Joe gasped, choking on a guttural moan. “Oh, _fuck, I’m_ -”

The grip against his hips tightened, and he spilled into the unrelenting warmth of Web’s mouth as the man himself gave a wounded moan and swallowed it down. Joe watched him, nearly shaking with the aftershocks of his pleasure, hypnotized by the dewy, tear-marked eyes that gazed up at him as his spent cock slipped free from Web’s mouth.

He hissed at the air against his still sensitive skin, but kept his eyes trained on Web’s blotchy, ruined face, continuing to comb his fingers through the other man’s hair. “That was good, doll,” he murmurs, “real good.”

Joe is still catching his breath when he catches sight of Web’s hand against himself, and when he found the time to pull his own dick out while he was letting Joe fuck his mouth he really doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Wordlessly, he hauls Web to his feet, pulling and yanking at his shirt once more so that he could lick into the other man’s mouth, carding a hand through his hair as the other moved down to take hold of his reddened cock.

Web let out a stifled cry, his mouth pulling from Joe’s as he practically hung off of him, and their combined weight is probably doing the door no favors. 

His grip around Web’s cock is firm, aided on by the thick stream of precum leaking from the tip, and he proceeds to work the other man over with swift, harsh strokes. Tipping his head back to gulp down a mouthful of air, Web thrust into his grip with hot desperation.

“Tighter, Lieb,” he implored, voice ravaged and cracked. 

Smiling, Joe obliged and tightened his hand just on the edge of too much and leaned back in to kiss Web deeply once more. The kiss broke at the needy hitch of Web’s breath as Joe circled his thumb over the head of his cock, his knuckles brushing the wiry hairs at the base.

Web thrust into his fist erratically for a moment more, before his face crumpled up in that pathetic way that Joe usually identifies with crying, and he whimpers. He’s about to ask if he’s alright until he feels the wet heat of Web’s release gathering into his hand and streaking his wrist.

“That’s it, Web,” he whispers against the other man’s face, kissing below his eye as Web continues to shudder helplessly against him. “Look so good…”

Whimpering once more, Web turns his face into Joe’s neck to kiss the mark he had made, mouthing softly at the pale skin surrounding it. Joe adjusted so that his arms were wrapped around his lover again, paying no mind to the fact that their cocks were still out and only vaguely managing to avoid getting come on their uniforms. He presses a kiss into Web’s mussed hair, and tips his head back against the door to just breathe for a few moments, every nerve singing at the feeling of Web against him doing the exact same thing. 

Web mumbles against his neck, and Joe has to shake him slightly to get him to repeat himself. “Are you happy?” he asks, meeting Joe’s eyes with what he truly believes is adoration.

Joe doesn’t answer, and kisses him instead. 

* * *

They dock on New Years Eve, too early to be truly celebratory and too late to enjoy it. A number of the guys decide outright that they’re going to spend the night in the city and ring in the New Year before looking to start making their way back home, wherever that is, but the vast majority seem too exhausted to even consider it and instead announce their intention to sleepwalk their way back to their own beds for the first time in years.

Joe admits he wants nothing more than to get his journey home underway and over with, as even the thought of spending any more time in this limbo state tightens his jaw. _After all,_ he thinks as he watches Web gather his things from his bunk, _I made a promise._

The few men from Easy that he had made the journey with lingered together on the dock, probably for too long if the thinning crowds were anything to go by. Joe found his throat inexplicably sore, filled up with a ball of fear that ate any words that were trying to make it past his mouth. He wished it was as easy as it had been with Web, and that’s never a thought he expected he’d have. There’s so much thanks he wants to give, over and over, until the sun comes up and then goes down again and maybe just _maybe_ he would be satisfied then, but probably not.

There’s nothing he could possibly say that would be enough. Not in a thousand years.

He crushes Luz’s hand in his grip, freely embraces Babe, and gladly takes the addresses that McClung and Skinny pass to him as he agrees to meet Pat at the station later that night.

One moment they’re all together, and suddenly he’s alone. 

_Who am I anyway?_ he thinks suddenly, and shivers as though the thought wasn’t his own.

Turning to see Web just a ways down from him on the dock, patiently waiting, nearly brings him to tears. He’s given a lot these past few years, and taken a lot in kind, and now he has to live a life where he’s allowed to take his time. 

Where someone is waiting for him.

Clearing his throat roughly, Joe swipes a hand over his face as he crosses over to Web, who straightens at his approach as though about to take Joe into his arms. Of course he isn’t, but Joe can see the intention written clear across his face, and manages a tight grimacing smile back.

“Are you alright?” Web asks quietly.

Joe nods, a stiff bob of his head. “I’ll be fine.”

Web nods back softly, swallowing down his own words, and remains still before Joe, one hand grasping the pack slung over his shoulder and the other casually hung in his pocket. Joe wants to put his head on his shoulder, let himself be held, and feels dull disappointment at the acknowledgment that even after everything they’ve accomplished he can’t do this one thing.

“You, uh,” he fumbles, trying to gather his thoughts into coherency once more. “You heading to your folks’?”

Tilting his head to the side in a sort of proto shrug, Web nods again. “In a sense,” he sighs, “They’re not home, they’ll be in Connecticut. I’ll stay in the city tonight, then let them know I’m on my way in the morning.”

He almost offers to spend the night, then remembers his promise to meet Pat at the station and curses himself. If he thought Web would say yes he’d tell him to come with Joe to the station, to just fuck the East coast and come to California and stay forever. It isn’t right for Web to spend his first night back home alone in a cold house with a cold bed, darkness in every corner. He oughta be with Joe. 

“I’ll walk you,” he says surely, though his voice is perhaps stronger than he really feels. “Is it far?”

Looking like he wants to at least pretend to fight Joe, Web’s mouth opens and closes momentarily before answering. “Not too far. You don’t have to though, Lieb.”

Joe steps closer, voice lowering. “I want to.”

His eyes are on Joe’s lips as he wordlessly nods his assent, before turning to begin walking off of the dock, where a few groups of men remained milling around in their individual pockets. Joe takes his own pack in hand, and moves to meet Web step for step without a second thought. 

They walk beside each other in almost complete silence, the lights of the city passing them by like fireflies, like blurs on the face of reality. Revelers dot the streets, a few raucously drunk ones calling out to them as they pass below their windows, a cheerful and borderline aggressive display of thanks ricocheting around them. Joe feels hazy, lightheaded with the surge of emotions he’s felt in the last few days, the stunning emptiness he knows awaits him once he’s back on his own. He aches to ask Web if he’s afraid, if maybe there are things about him that Joe doesn’t know, _has_ to know before they’re apart for fuck knows how long. 

_How long? How long until I’m going to see you again?_

Web pauses on a darkened street, where classic townhouses stretch up into the darkened sky on either side of the road. “This is me.”

He fights not to look too closely at the building they’ve stopped in front of, not wanting to see exactly what he’s releasing Web back into, though he does note the bones of a dead lilac tree resting just inside the iron gate that Web unlatches. _Don’t think too hard on it,_ he tries to reason with himself. If Web was going to have second thoughts he’d have already had them. If there was anything he wanted that Joe wasn’t equipped to give him he would know by now.

He misjudged Web. And Web had misjudged him. 

They’re past this now. Past all of it. But now the even harder part begins.

Web turns to him after fighting the gate open, face beseeching. “Do you want to come in?”

Joe shakes his head with no small degree of reluctance. “I, uh, told Pat I’d meet him at the station, you know?”

“Oh,” Web blinks, mouth opening before thinking better of it and shutting. His eyes are drinking in the sight of Joe, measuring every line of his face and crease of his uniform. “I guess this is goodbye then.”

He feels terribly hot, like he’s going to vomit, for a second. His stomach seems to drop down, down, down, but that might just as well be his heart. 

“Not goodbye,” Joe raspily corrects. He hazards a glance around them, taking in the darkened windows of the surrounding street, before reaching to pull Web to his chest, where he holds him as close and as still as can be. He makes himself solid, makes himself sure, creates a strength that he prays he can maintain. Around him Web’s arms are bruising, and Joe hopes that their warmth melts into him and warms him until he can feel it again. 

Web releases himself half-heartedly, hands smoothing up and down Joe’s chest in the semi-darkness of the street. “Be safe, Lieb, please.”

“I will,” Joe promises.

“And write to me?”

“If you write to me I’ll write to you, doll,” Joe nods, smiling weakly.

Web nods again and then again, reassuring himself, as he continues to search Joe’s face for any sign of weakness, or of pain. “Will you wait here? Just until I get inside?” 

It’s so abysmally sad, and the hurt of it all rushes through his body like a drug. “‘Course I will.”

“Alright...alright…” Web murmurs, swallowing roughly once more, before looking around the street quickly and leaning in to plant a hard kiss on Joe’s lips. He can only respond for a moment, before Web has the strength to withdraw, taking up his pack and stepping back from Joe.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Web,” Joe promises once more, holding himself back from following the other man as he steps up onto the first stair up to his door.

“You’d better,” Web says, voice hard but hollow. “Goodbye, Joe.”

“Bye, David,” Joe finds himself saying, and nearly grins at the look that passes over Web’s face, as though Joe had screamed a vow into the night for all New York to hear. It’s all he needs, apparently, to grant Joe a final smile, before stepping up the final few stairs, where he opens the darkened door, and then is gone.

He lingers for a moment, eyes darting from window to window just to see if one lights up, but nothing appears. The lights remain absent, and the street itself is as silent as the grave.

There’s a train waiting for him. And a family, and a life that he had set down and has to take back up. A mother with sharp eyes, and sisters with a thousand questions that will need answers. He has a job waiting for him, with responsibilities, and money, and empty rooms, and doors, and beyond all of this is the sea.

 _I’m not ready,_ he thinks to himself, eyes still glued to Web’s door. _Not for a fucking piece of it._

When he finally brings himself to move he runs.

**Author's Note:**

> that's that on that! keep part III in your hearts and vibes lol
> 
> thank you for reading, and be well~


End file.
